​The Eagle River Triathlon is Sunday, June 3, 2018, and it’s a great opportunity to start the summer spending time outdoors with your kids. The triathlon also kicks off a series of summer physical activity events, including the Mayor’s Marathon Kid’s Mile on June 21 and the Anchorage RunFest Kids 2K on August 18.

The Eagle River Tri is a sprint distance triathlon. It has an untimed event for kids ages 6 to 12, as well as timed events for adults and children 13 and older. The intent of the event is to promote a safe and fun introduction to the triathlon, as well as a competitive race for more experienced elite athletes.

Local athlete Liane Nagata has participated in the Eagle River Tri with her daughters, Lauren (20) and Madalyn (15) when they were younger. She said it was the perfect introduction to triathlons for her daughters, as they later completed the Gold Nugget Triathlon in Anchorage.

“The event is fun to watch, and once they did it one time, they were ready to do it again,” Nagata said. “They enjoyed it and the organization (of the event) makes it fun and definitely safe for even the littlest kids.”

The entry fees are $30.00 for kids and $108.00 for adults. The online registration deadline is June 1, 2018, or until the event sells out. There is no race-day registration, except for the kids’ race. The kids’ race, however, has a limit of 250 participants.

The sprint distance for adults is a 500-yard pool swim (10 laps/20 lengths), followed by a 20K (12.4 miles) bike and a 5K (3.1 miles) run. The kids have a choice of a long course or a short course. The long course includes a 100-yard (two lap) swim, a 2-mile bike, and .8 mile run. The short course includes a 50-yard (one lap) swim, a 2-mile bike, and .8 mile run.

Race director Kristin Folmar says 150-225 kids typically turn out for the Eagle River Tri, which she calls a low-key, no-pressure event.

“If a kid swims one lap in the pool and wants to get out, that’s an option,” she said. “It is meant to be a fun, safe, positive experience and an event for the whole family. It is a community event, and the kids get to see the adults participate first. The kids get to warm up with pre-game events sponsored by Healthy Futures and Chain Reaction Cycles.”

For more information about the Eagle River Tri, visit the kid’s page on the website. Families who are interested in signing up for other summer events can learn more online. Information about the Mayor’s Marathon Kid’s Mile on June 21 can be found here. Learn more about the Anchorage RunFest Kids 2K on August 18 at this website. Plan ahead for these fun events!

In winter or summer, the trails across Alaska are ideal for great adventures. Some Alaskans use them in a big way, such as mushing dogs almost 1,000 miles along trails during the yearly Iditarod race. Alaska’s health department is partnering with the Anchorage Park Foundation to help many Alaskans use them in an everyday way. Anchorage Park Foundation’s “Health on Trails” program makes it easier for people to learn what trails are nearby, how long it takes to walk them, and how far you can go on trails during a lunch break or after work.

“The Anchorage Park Foundation works hard to improve our parks and trails. However, if people aren’t getting out and enjoying these premier amenities, then we aren’t making the most of our resources,” said Molly Lanphier, with the foundation. “Getting out during the workday is one way that Anchorage residents can take full advantage of Anchorage’s crown jewel.”

“The wellness map gives employees the tools, social support, and encouragement to adopt a physically active lifestyle right from their office door” said Karol Fink, program manager for the state’s obesity prevention program.

The custom-designed map shows a safe and interesting walking route that employees can take right from their office door — before, after or during their breaks at work. The maps include the nearby trail’s distance, safety considerations, and a legend that highlights viewpoints, bridges, and other attractions along the path. To learn about the map and walking route, employees were invited to attend a luncheon and take a guided tour of the route with Lanphier from the Park Foundation.

As one example, Catholic Social Services’ map showcases baseball fields, sitting benches, and a warning where sidewalks are not present during the 1.25-mile walk around Tikishla Park. On the back of the map, there are recommendations for changing weather conditions, respecting wildlife, and how to be prepared to enjoy the outdoors.

Encouraging Alaskans to walk on trails before or after work or during breaks is one way to help people of all ages get closer to the nationally recommended amount of daily activity. Many Alaskans are currently falling short. In 2015, 58% of Alaska adults met the recommended 150 minutes of aerobic physical activity per week. In 2017, only 18% of Alaska high school students met the recommended 60 minutes of physical activity each day of the week. The maps are one way APIA and Catholic Social Services are supporting their employees in making healthy lifestyle choices and promoting physical activity.

“Alaska is unique because the weather and daylight is always changing. Finding opportunities that are safe, enjoyable, and easily accessible is important,” said Inmaly Inthaly from Catholic Social Services. “Walking from our worksite makes a lot of sense because we’re already here.”

​Alaska is a state where high school standouts go on to ski for a gold medal at the Olympics, shoot hoops for the NBA, and play baseball for the big leagues.

That’s Chad Nading’s story – from East High Thunderbird to baseball player for the San Diego Padres system. For Nading, it started with a physically active childhood and continued through years of sticking with the game.

“In 2016, I was sitting on a couch with no opportunities to keep playing, when an independent baseball team — the Wichita Wingnuts — called me,” said Nading, the former four-time Alaska state champion. “They needed help filling innings because they had injuries.”

“I had no guarantee I would stay for more than a weekend. It was my decision whether to take a chance and play, or retire from baseball.”

Nading took a chance. He earned a permanent spot with the Wingnuts and later signed with the San Diego Padres organization in 2017. He went on to play with the San Antonio Missions.

“I took a chance and got the opportunity to prove myself, and it was the best decision I could have made,” he said.

Over the years, Nading kept sharpening his skills by coaching with the Alaska Baseball Academy and Notre Dame Preparatory, while giving young athletes the knowledge he wished he had at a younger age. Nading points to his youth as the reason for his success.

“I was very active as a kid. Whatever my friends wanted to do – roller hockey, fishing, basketball, football – I was willing to do it,” he said. “My parents were very supportive of my desire to be active, as well as whatever I decided to do.”

His experience with sports turned into a passion, which turned into a determination to excel. Nading lettered in multiple sports at Anchorage School District’s East High School, winning state titles in track and field, baseball, and football.

“Sports are humbling, especially in the big leagues,” he said. “Staying positive in tough times and confident in good times has led me to where I am. I had to fight through really bad days by telling myself that I was good enough and tomorrow is a new day to show my ability.”

Nading encourages youth to be as active as possible and try several sports.

Have you ever competed in a race when winning meant crossing the finish line before the last note of a song? What about when winning gave you naming rights for a bison? Communities across Alaska are organizing a set of unique races to kick off this spring’s running season.

These events are supported by our partner, Healthy Futures. Thousands of children across Alaska are logging their physical activity this month on their Healthy Futures Challenge logs. These fun events count toward the children’s goal of 60 minutes of physical activity every day.

Beat Beethoven in Fairbanks

It’s time to sign up for “Beat Beethoven,” an annual 5K race that kicks off the running season in Fairbanks on Saturday, April 14, 2018. Participants who finish before the last note of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony get a voucher for free admission to a Fairbanks Symphony Orchestra performance. The composer’s well-known symphony is about 31 minutes long, which could make it a quick-paced race on the University of Alaska Fairbanks campus.

Early bird registration for this Symphony Orchestra fundraiser ends Monday, April 9, and late registration continues through race day. The race starts at 11 a.m. April 14. Healthy Futures will hand out medals to children who finish.

Run in Portage to name first-born bison

Further south, Portage will be the site for another interesting fun run on April 14, 2018. The Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center has organized the Bison Run Wild 5K to raise funds to care for the wood bison at the center. The man and woman who win the race will get to name the first bison born this season. Go online for more information and to register for the race that starts at 11 a.m.

Race for a healthy heart in Anchorage

April brings the 40th annual Alaska Heart Run in Anchorage. A timed race begins at 9:30 a.m. and an untimed race starts at 10 a.m. on Saturday, April 21, 2018. Participants can walk or run a 3K or 5K course at the Alaska Airlines Center on the University of Alaska Anchorage campus. The event benefits the American Heart Association to pay for research and programs that help address heart disease and stroke. Top finishers in each age group will receive certificates and ribbons. All children in grades 6 and under will receive medals. Go online for more information or to register.

​Vitamin D is often called the “sunshine vitamin” because our bodies can make vitamin D when sunlight contacts the skin. During our dark winter months, many Alaskans are getting very little (if any) vitamin D from sunlight exposure, so we need to think about getting the vitamin through foods and supplements. Vitamin D is important for strong bones and may contribute to overall good health.

“Eating healthy foods is always the best option”, says Diane Peck, Registered Dietitian Nutritionist with the Alaska Section of Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. “Healthy foods provide so many more nutrients and other benefits that aren’t found in supplements. But for many people in Alaska, taking a vitamin D supplement along with a healthy diet may be appropriate.”

Lucky for us, some of the foods with the most vitamin D are found in Alaska. Traditional diets protected Alaska Native people during the long, dark winter. Salmon — fresh, canned or smoked — is an excellent source of vitamin D. Marine mammals, fish oil and seal oil contain large amounts of vitamin D. Oysters, shrimp, halibut, flounder, and rock fish are good sources, too.

Other foods that contain vitamin D include tuna fish, cod liver oil, egg yolks, and some mushrooms. Vitamin D has also been added to many foods. Look for the words “vitamin D fortified” on packages of milk, soymilk, yogurt, orange juice, oatmeal, and ready-to-eat cereals. For a list of foods and their vitamin D content, see the U.S. Dietary Guidelines.

The amount of vitamin D needed varies throughout your lifespan. You can learn more about the Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) for vitamin D at https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/VitaminD-Consumer/. Besides living in a place without much sunlight, other factors may affect vitamin D levels:

• People with darker skin don’t produce vitamin D as quickly as people with lighter skin.• Older adults may not produce vitamin D as well as younger people.• Breastfeeding is the best choice for the health of infants, but breast milk can be low in vitamin D.

If you think you’re not getting enough vitamin D, talk with your health care provider. It is important to note that taking too much vitamin D can have negative effects and may interact with other medications you’re taking.

​Fifteen years ago, a small nonprofit started a free physical activity challenge to help Alaska children get moving. The hope was to support children to be physically active every day. This would help them grow up healthy and prevent childhood obesity, a serious problem in our state.

Healthy Futures — a small program with a big goal — has been supporting active children all across Alaska ever since. During the first Healthy Futures Challenge in 2003, just 30 of Alaska’s 400 elementary schools participated. The Healthy Futures program was founded by the late Bonny Sosa Young and her husband Sam Young, parents who were concerned about childhood obesity in Alaska.

Since 2003, more partners started to work with Healthy Futures to support physical activity. Providence Health & Services Alaska is a longtime partner. The United Way of Anchorage supports the program, as does the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium, ConocoPhillips, the Alaska Kidney Foundation and others. The Alaska Department of Health and Social Services, Obesity Prevention and Control Program and its Play Every Day campaign became a partner for the 2012 Spring Challenge, and that partnership continues today. Now, Healthy Futures is run through another organization called the Alaska Sports Hall of Fame.

Participation took off as more organizations started working with Healthy Futures to promote the same goal of active Alaska kids. Look at how the program has grown:

First Challenge during the 2003-2004 school year: 30 schools, 2,300 participating children

“It's nice to see the growth of the Healthy Futures program over the years, but it's especially gratifying to know that the essence of Healthy Futures has never really wavered during that time,” said Harlow Robinson, executive director of Healthy Futures and the Alaska Sports Hall of Fame. “The mission and the core programs have always been fundamentally sound and that is a testament to Bonny Sosa's vision.”

It’s not too late for schools to sign up for the Spring Challenge online. The Spring Challenge runs in February, March and April. Students keep a log of their daily physical activity with the goal of being active at least 60 minutes a day for 15 days each month. This helps Alaska children get closer to the national recommendation of 60 minutes of physical activity every day for the best health. The challenge is free to schools and students. Students who successfully log their physical activity each month of the challenge win a prize from Healthy Futures.

Staff at interested schools can contact alyse@healthyfuturesak.org to learn about signing up for this and future physical activity challenges. Parents can ask their children if their elementary schools are participating in the challenge (almost half of them are), and can help support their kids to complete the physical activity goals each month.

The map of schools participating in the Spring Healthy Futures Challenge was created in mid February, 2018.

​State health leaders focused on obesity prevention are working with Alaska dental providers to help reduce sugary drink consumption among children and families.

During January and February, Alaska Obesity Prevention and Control Program staff visited Bethel and Utqiagvik to train more than 80 dentists, dental assistants, and dental health aide therapists, as well as pharmacists, pediatricians, physician assistants and diabetes prevention professionals. The providers with the Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corporation and Arctic Slope Native Association learned how to use a new, brief guide called “When Sugar is Not So Sweet.”

The trained dental providers are now using the guide to talk with families about the large amount of sugar hiding in many drinks, the health risks linked to that added sugar, and steps families can take to cut back on sugary drinks and choose water or milk instead. The brief guide is available for free online. A rack card about picking a plan to cut back on sugary drinks also is available online.

“This training gave our entire team knowledge and tools that we need to influence an efficient change in our community,” said Dr. Tucker Burnett, a dentist with YKHC. “With this training, we are better equipped to reach out and help adjust our patients’ thinking about what they drink.”

The new guide for dental providers offers another strategy to talk with families about the risks of eating and drinking too much sugar. Sugary drinks are the number one source of added sugar in people’s daily diets.

“Too many of Alaska’s children and adults are drinking sugary beverages, often every single day,” said Karol Fink, the Obesity Prevention and Control Program manager who conducted the trainings. “About 40 percent of Alaska high school students report drinking at least one sugary drink every day. Almost 25 percent of Alaska adults say they drink a sugary drink every day.”

Just one sugary drink can have more added sugar than children and adults should have in one day, based on the added sugar limits in the U.S. Dietary Guidelines for Americans. Helping Alaskans cut back on added sugar can help prevent serious health problems that may start in childhood and last a lifetime, Fink said. These health problems include cavities, type 2 diabetes, heart disease and obesity. In Alaska, about 1 out of 3 children is overweight or obese. About 2 out of 3 adults are overweight or obese.

​Kids at Auntie Mary Nicoli Elementary in Aniak are getting ready to play. So are kids at elementary schools in Craig, Glennallen, Ketchikan, Kiana, Manokotak, Nightmute and White Mountain.

Around the state, about 80 elementary schools and groups have signed up to help children complete a half hour of organized physical activity — all at the same time in communities across the state. They will be participating in the second PLAAY Day, scheduled for Thursday morning, Feb. 22, 2018. PLAAY stands for Positive Leadership for Active Alaska Youth. Our partner, the Alaska Sports Hall of Fame, is running PLAAY Day to help Alaska children get active for good health.

It’s not too late for schools to sign up to participate. PLAAY organizers are hoping for at least 150 participating schools, so thousands of children across the state have the opportunity to be physically active on PLAAY Day.

“The goal behind PLAAY Day is to galvanize communities to encourage children to be physically active,” said Harlow Robinson, executive director of the Alaska Sports Hall of Fame. “A shared physical activity — especially on the grand scale of our state — has the potential to create enthusiasm around the cause.”

At 10 a.m. that morning, children will participate in a half hour of physical activity in school gyms, classrooms, recreation centers, common spaces or even outside. Students from the University of Alaska Anchorage Department of Health, Physical Education and Recreation along with Anchorage-based youth will lead the children in an organized and synchronized fun session of activity. Children will be able to participate at their appropriate levels and physical abilities. Physical activities included during PLAAY Day will be able to be modified and adapted to include students of all abilities, Robinson said.

The Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium (ANTHC) and GCI will link all of these schools and groups through a free, live videoconferencing session. Schools and organizations can participate in different ways, from toll free dialing into a conference with video playing at their location to interactive video teleconference participation.

Schools can sign up now for PLAAY DAY and will receive more information about the event as the date gets closer. Interested schools and groups can register as an entire school, a classroom, a home school, or an organization.

Along with organizing PLAAY Day, the Alaska Sports Hall of Fame will run the PLAAY Summit on Feb. 23 and 24, 2018, in Anchorage at ANTHC. The Summit will feature experts from around the state who will help teachers, parents, nurses, coaches, administrators and other leaders address many areas of youth and adolescent health, including psychological, social and emotional development. The PLAAY Summit also will focus on physical activity as a way to improve health.

Partners of the PLAAY Day and PLAAY Summit include Healthy Futures, ANTHC, GCI, the Alaska Center for Pediatrics, Alaska Airlines, Children’s Hospital at Providence, the Anchorage School District, Bristol Bay Native Corporation, Play Every Day, the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services, University of Alaska Anchorage, Vidyo, The Alaska Club, Anchorage Running Club, LaTouche Pediatrics, Alaska Pediatric Therapy, Bear Tooth, Kaladi Brothers, and others.

A group of 10 elementary and middle school boys in Fairbanks have invented a device to get you thinking about how much water you drink every day.

They did their research this year and learned that kids — and adults — don’t always drink enough water every day for the best health. They want to help you remember to drink water every day, and they designed an original bracelet to help you do that. They named it the Hydracelet.

These boys have a special name, too. They’re called the Philosophers, which is the team name for their Lego Robotics competition. They work together through the Interior Distance Education of Alaska (IDEA) homeschool program in Fairbanks. Lego Robotics involves building and programming robots to accomplish tasks. Each year, the First Lego League competition also comes with a research topic. This year’s topic is hydrodynamics. Each group had to come up with a water-related challenge and design a plan to tackle it. The Philosophers chose to explore ways to help people who don’t drink enough water every day.

“I was one of those kids who didn’t drink enough water, until I used the Hydracelet,” said 12-year-old Dawson Cooper, a seventh-grader on the Philosophers team.

It turns out the Hydracelet was a winning idea. The Philosophers won the Best Project award during the Fairbanks Lego Robotics regional qualifier in December, so the team and their Hydracelets will be in Anchorage this Saturday, January 20, 2018, for the statewide Lego Robotics competition at Dimond High School.

“We’re going to give them to the judges so they can see how they work,” Dawson said.

When designing the Hydracelet, Dawson talked with Fairbanks pediatrician Dr. Letha Archer to learn more about water and good health. Dr. Archer said not drinking enough water is definitely a problem she has seen in her 22 years of practice. Dehydration can lead to constipation and headaches, she said. Water also helps your body maintain a normal temperature, cushion the joints, and get rid of waste through sweating and urination, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“I see a lot of kids who drink the wrong kinds of drinks, so I push water,” Dr. Archer said. The wrong kinds of drinks, she said, are those with added sugar, like soda, sports drinks, and sweetened fruit drinks. These drinks can hurt teeth, and lead to weight gain and obesity, she said. Water, on the other hand, has no added sugar and no calories.

Dr. Archer said she thinks the Philosophers are working on a great research project and she was impressed by the Hydracelet. The team worked with an online company to order blue silicone bracelets in adult and youth sizes that say “Hydracelet” on the inside and have the numbers 1 through 8 printed in a large white font on the outside. Each number stands for one, 8-ounce glass of water. Then the group worked with a 3D printer in the Fairbanks area to create a square-shaped slider that wraps around the bracelet. Each time you drink an 8-ounce glass of water, you move the slider up a number. When the slider reaches 8, you know you have consumed eight glasses of water, or 64 ounces, that day.

How much water you need every day depends on a number of factors: your age, weight, overall health, physical activity level, and more. The Mayo Clinic says 8, 8-ounce glasses of water a day is “easy to remember, and it’s a reasonable goal.” Some people might eed more, and some might need less. Dr. Archer said 64 ounces of water a day is a good target in general for older school-age children and adults.

Zach Burgess, a 12-year-old Philosophers team member who lives in North Pole, said he didn’t drink that much water each day before wearing the Hydracelet. He said he drank only two to three glasses of water a day, and thinks this led to a lot of headaches. He’s been wearing a Hydracelet for the past two months and said he moves the slider over to eight glasses of water most days.

“Every time I look at my wrist and it’s a low number, it reminds me to drink more water,” Zach said.

The boys started with a limited quantity of Hydracelets, only about 200. They raised funds to pay for this first batch and sell them for a few dollars each, putting the proceeds toward buying more. Dawson said they are hoping to raise enough money to buy Hydracelets that they can give away to hospitals, clinics and schools in the Fairbanks area. Dawson said he hopes handing out Hydracelets will help teach kids the importance of drinking water for good health. Zach said he hopes children around Alaska — and maybe around the country — will wear them.

You can learn more about the Philosophers and their Hydracelet project on Facebook. The team also has an Etsy page for the bracelet.

Photograph: Dawson Cooper, left, and Zach Burgess, right, wear their Hydracelets to help remind them to drink water.

“Holly is a great example of an Alaskan we can all be proud of,” Robinson said.

Brooks is a former member of the United States Ski Team. She earned seven top-10 finishes in World Cup races and two national championship wins. She skied in two Olympic Winter Games. In 2013, Brooks helped the U.S. team win a World Cup relay medal. Brooks has also won the 50K Tour of Anchorage and 55K American Birkebeiner marathon races, along with several prestigious in-state mountain races including Mount Marathon, Bird Ridge, and Lost Lake.

Brooks said she is honored and humbled to be named to the Alaska Sports Hall of Fame.

“I think it is really important for kids to be introduced to healthy role models and people they can look up to, and it’s amazing to be identified as one of those role models for the state,” she said.

Brooks has been a spokesperson for Healthy Futures and the Play Every Day campaign since the earliest days of her professional career. She said the opportunity these programs have provided to meet thousands of kids and share positive messages with them has been one of the highlights of her career.

“Probably one of my favorite parts about being a professional athlete is the platform you get to speak from as an Olympian,” she said. “I love going into the schools and meeting the kids. Not every kid is exposed to healthy activity and lifestyle choices at home, so being able to be that person in a kid’s life is really special.”

Robinson said that passion is one of the reasons Brooks was selected for the award.

“Her dedication to giving back to the community speaks to the kind of person Holly is, and illustrates the positive impact she's had in Alaska,” he said. “Holly has been a tremendous spokesperson.”

​The holiday season is in full swing, and communities across the state have planned fun ways to be physically active outdoors with your family.

Dec. 16, 2017Celebrate the Solstice. Go for a walk in the woods in Eagle River, snowshoe in Fairbanks, or head out for a run in Willow.The Eagle River Nature Center invites you to bring your lantern, or borrow one of theirs, to light your way along the trails to a bonfire. The free event runs from 6-8 p.m., Saturday, Dec. 16. Participants can bring nonperishable food items to donate to the Eagle River Food Bank. Find out more online.

If you live in the Fairbanks area, sign up for the free Solstice Snowshoe Shuffle at noon, Dec. 16. Participants will shuffle along a 1-mile loop. Don’t have your own snowshoes? Don’t worry. The event organizers have extra snowshoes available for participants. Learn more at on Facebook.

Willow has put out quite the invitation online: “We want to encourage people to come to Willow and run in the dead of winter!” The Willow Winter Solstice Marathon Races also take place Dec. 16 with several options for those interested in shorter or longer runs. There will be a 5K, a half marathon and a marathon. Each course will be on winter trails. The event’s website is filled with words of caution, letting potential participants know they should be prepared for cold temperatures and varying types of weather. The website includes reminders to train for cold weather, pack extra clothes, and consider bringing snowshoes and spiked shoes. “You may need them!” the website said. Read more about this event online.

Dec. 17, 2017Got skis? Great if you do, but don’t worry if you don’t. Come to Kincaid Park in Anchorage from 4-7 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 17, for the second Solstice Tree Tour. The whole family can ski — or walk — in the woods. Adults and children of all abilities are welcome. Trees along 2.5K of the Mize Loop will be decorated by local businesses and organizations, including our partner Healthy Futures. Find out more about the Tree Tour.

Dec. 31, 2017Run — or dance — into the New Year.

Wrap up 2017 on a healthy note with your family. Join the Resolution Run New Year's Eve near the Alaska Pacific University campus in Anchorage. At 6 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 31, participants will run or walk 5K of roads and wooded trails decorated with a fun light and music display. The event starts and ends with a party at the Atwood Center. Watch an online video about the run and learn more online.

Mark your calendar or sign up early. A popular ski event for kids is coming up soon.The annual Ski4Kids Day is set for Saturday, Feb. 24, 2018, at Kincaid Chalet in Anchorage. The event features short ski races ranging from 1K to 3K that are timed or untimed. Children receive a medal and goody bag for finishing. Ski4Kids features many other winter activities, too. These include obstacle courses, a mock biathlon, and more. There is no participant fee for Ski4Kids, but a donation goes toward the Nordic Skiing Association of Anchorage to provide ski equipment to schools and youth groups. Registration is available online. Find out more about the event.

Added sugars are getting more and more attention as a public health concern. Kids eat them in sweetened cereal at breakfast. They’re in granola bars and other snacks. Sugar can be added to the ketchup on burgers; the sauce on spaghetti; and the cookies, cakes or ice cream at dessert.

Some Alaska communities are taking action to limit the negative health effects of sugary drinks. The North Slope Borough School Board in Utqiagvik passed a district policy during August 2017 that means sodas and other carbonated beverages will no longer be allowed on their elementary- and middle-school campus during school hours.

The effort started as a “Stop the Pop” pledge for players on the Barrow high school football and volleyball teams who decided to cut out drinking soda during the season. This then expanded to their booster club’s decision to stop selling soda at after-school sporting events. The effort has now become a school district policy, designating entire school buildings as “soda-free.”

North Slope wellness team members knew they’d need to update their policy to meet federal regulations, but they said they didn’t think the minimum regulations went far enough. The North Slope Borough School District wellness policy goes above and beyond the minimum regulations to address the concerns of their communities and promote student health. While districts across the country are working to ensure that drinks sold on campus during the school day meet nutrition standards, the North Slope team decided they wanted their school campuses to be “soda-free.” Beginning with their elementary and middle schools, all drinks provided to students for free and brought from home must also meet the Smart Snacks in School beverage criteria. The district team may decide to include high schools in the future.

North Slope isn’t the only school district taking steps to address sugary drinks at school. Schools across the state are spreading the word about sugars hiding in everyday drinks. The latest posters in the Play Every Day sugary drink education campaign were mailed out to be displayed in about 180 elementary schools that signed up to participate in the Fall 2017 Healthy Futures Challenge.

School districts like North Slope Borough know how important good health is to academic achievement and are doing what they can to help students be healthy and successful learners. Other districts can consider changes that work for their school campuses. Visit this site for more information about Alaska School Wellness policies and Be a School Wellness Champion.

​Alaska elementary schools and groups are signing up to help kids complete a half hour of organized physical activity — all at the same time in communities across the state.

These young students will be participating in the second PLAAY Day, scheduled for Thursday morning, Feb. 22, 2018. PLAAY stands for Positive Leadership for Active Alaska Youth. Our partner, the Alaska Sports Hall of Fame, is running PLAAY Day to help Alaska children get active for good health.

During the first PLAAY Day in February 2017, more than 100 schools and organizations participated.

"We were thrilled to bring 10,000 Alaska youth from across the state together for a shared experience,” said Harlow Robinson, executive director of the Alaska Sports Hall of Fame and co-organizer of PLAAY Day. “We look forward to growing those numbers with the 2018 PLAAY Day."

During PLAAY Day, schools and groups across Alaska will organize a half-hour session at 10 a.m. when students in school gyms, classrooms, recreation centers, common spaces or even outside will get up and get moving. Students from the University of Alaska Anchorage Department of Health, Physical Education and Recreation along with Anchorage-based youth will lead the children in an organized — and synchronized — fun session of physical activity. Children will be able to participate at their appropriate levels and physical abilities. Physical activities included during PLAAY Day will be able to be modified and adapted to include students of all abilities, Robinson said.

The Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium (ANTHC) and GCI will link all of these schools and groups through a free, live videoconferencing session. Schools and organizations can participate in different ways, from toll free dialing into a conference with video playing at their location to interactive video teleconference participation.

"Thanks to technological support from the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium and GCI, we've been able to connect children from every corner of the state around a common cause,” Robinson said.

Physical activity is linked with many benefits, including increased concentration and focus at school, improved classroom attendance and behavior, better academic performance, and improved overall health, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. PLAAY Day will help Alaska kids get closer to the national recommendation of 60 minutes of physical activity needed every day for the best health. It will help children complete the February Healthy Futures Challenge, when kids across Alaska will be logging their daily physical activity through logs distributed at elementary schools. PLAAY Day also supports the implementation of Alaska’s Physical Activity in Schools Law, which calls on districts to establish guidelines to provide opportunities for almost one hour of daily physical activity for all students in grades kindergarten through 8.

Schools can sign up now for PLAAY DAY and will receive more information about the event as the date gets closer. Interested schools and groups can register as an entire school, a classroom, a home school, or an organization.

Along with organizing PLAAY Day, the Alaska Sports Hall of Fame will run the PLAAY Summit on Feb. 23 and 24, 2018, in Anchorage at ANTHC. The Summit will feature experts from around the state who will help teachers, parents, nurses, coaches, administrators and other leaders address many areas of youth and adolescent health, including psychological, social and emotional development. The PLAAY Summit also will focus on physical activity as a way to improve health.

Partners of the PLAAY Day and PLAAY Summit include Healthy Futures, ANTHC, GCI, the Alaska Center for Pediatrics, the Children’s Hospital at Providence, the Anchorage School District Department of Health and Physical Education, Bristol Bay Native Corporation, Maniilaq Association, Play Every Day, the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services, University of Alaska Anchorage, The Alaska Club, Anchorage Running Club, Bear Tooth, Kaladi Brothers, and others.

​About 1 out of 3 Alaska children is overweight or obese. It’s important to prevent unhealthy weight gain at a young age. Along with families, child care and early education providers can play a big role in helping Alaska’s youngest children grow up at a healthy weight.

“It’s important for child care staff, families and other caregivers to be on the same page for young children’s health,” said Diane Peck, a registered dietitian and Early Care and Education Obesity Prevention Specialist for Alaska. “The Wellness Guidelines provide tips for parents to use at home, as well as ideas for child care newsletters and events that can help inform and engage parents. Families can join child care providers in planning programs and activities to prevent childhood obesity and encourage healthy living.”

The Wellness Guidelines provide quick and easy information on a variety of topics for obesity prevention in child care facilities. Each topic contains practical tips and ideas for healthy activities in child care facilities or day care homes. These ideas include ways to keep kids active when it’s too cold or wet outside, the healthiest beverages to serve to young children, and ways to support breastfeeding mothers. The Wellness Guidelines contain resources on healthy activities, policies, kids’ books, and more.

Alaska’s new publication includes a section on traditional foods. Serving traditional foods recognizes the cultural and ethnic preferences of children and broadens all children’s experiences with food. Many foods that grow wild in Alaska are part of a traditional Alaska Native diet. Foods such as wild game meats, fish, seafood, plants, and berries are very nutritious and can be served in child care settings when proper food safety guidelines are followed. Use of these foods can address the cultural and ethnic preferences of many children, encourage community and family engagement, and reduce dependency on store-bought foods.

The Wellness Guidelines for Alaska’s Young Children were developed by the Alaska Obesity Prevention and Control Program with input from the Alaska Alliance for Healthy Kids – Early Care and Education Work Group. This work group brings together people interested in addressing childhood obesity in the child care and early education settings. The group consists of Head Start and individual child care providers, as well as organizations that provide licensing, training, and support for child care centers, such as thread, the Child and Adult Care Food Program, the Alaska Child Care Program Office, and the Women, Infants and Children Program (WIC). The group hosts a listserv to provide up-to-date, Alaska-specific information on childhood obesity prevention issues for child care providers. You can click here to join the listserv.

You can learn more about healthy eating and active play in child care facilities by clicking here. If you have a question about childhood obesity prevention, contact Peck at diane.peck@alaska.gov or (907) 269-8447.

​It’s just one sugary drink for your child. That can’t be so bad, right?

But week after week, year after year, the effects of all that sugar add up.

Sugary drinks can lead to type 2 diabetes. They can destroy your children’s teeth.

These are the opening lines of a new educational video that is being shared with parents across Alaska this fall to motivate families to drink fewer sugary drinks for the best health. This video and other educational materials are part of a new partnership between Alaska Department of Health and Social Services program directors working on obesity prevention and dental health. These programs have a similar goal: reduce sugary drink consumption among Alaska families to improve the health of their entire bodies — from their mouths to their waistlines to the health of their hearts and blood vessels. Sugary drinks include sweetened fruit-flavored drinks, powdered mixes, sports and energy drinks, sweetened coffees and teas, vitamin drinks, and soda.

This two-year pilot Healthy Drinks for Healthy Kids project is being funded by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to improve dental health and prevent obesity and other chronic diseases in Alaska. The pilot is supported by the Alaska Dental Society and dental providers across the state. In Alaska, about 1 out of 3 children is overweight or obese. About 2 out of 3 adults are overweight or obese. During the 2010-11 school year, dentists under contract with the Alaska Oral Health Program examined the teeth of young children in Alaska and found 41% of kindergartners had a filling or an untreated cavity on at least one tooth at the time of the screening. Rates of past or present cavities were even higher in third-graders, with 62% of students having past or present decay on at least one tooth at the time of the screening.

Reducing sugary drink consumption can help Alaskans improve their health, given that many Alaskans drink too many sugary beverages and they’re drinking them every single day. Just one sugary drink — such as one 20-ounce bottle of soda with 16 teaspoons of sugar — has more added sugar than people should have in one day based on the added sugar limits in the U.S. Dietary Guidelines for Americans.

• About 23% of Alaska adults and 42% of Alaska high school students drink one of more sodas or sugary drinks every day (2015 BRFSS, 2015 YRBS) • One out of 5 Alaska parents of elementary-age children serves their children a sugary drink every day, and two out of three parents serve their kids sugary drinks one or more times each week. (2014 Play Every Day Statewide Telephone Survey)

The Healthy Drinks for Healthy Kids project will include a special guide to help dentists and dental hygienists have a brief conversation with young Alaska children and their parents during routine dental exams about the health harms of sugary drinks. The guide will help dental providers ask their patients about sugary drinks, advise patients to reduce consumption, and assist these patients in coming up with a plan to reduce the sugary drinks in their diets and replace them with water and milk.

One way to improve the health of Alaska students is helping school districts pass and implement a strong school wellness policy (also known as a student nutrition and physical activity policy). Evidence of the importance of a strong school wellness policy is so clear that the federal government has mandated that every school district receiving funds for school breakfast or lunch has a current policy.

Alaska School Districts Putting Policy into ActionThe Mat-Su Borough School District is one district that recently approved a new wellness policy that limits the sale and marketing of sugary drinks and junk foods in schools, while increasing support for physical activity and physical education.

The Mat-Su district updated its wellness policy at the June 7, 2017, school board meeting. District wellness team member Jana DePriest was enthusiastic about the new policy.

“We want our students to be healthy and have every advantage to achieve their potential,” DePriest said. “This policy update is in line with efforts we’ve been working on in the district for years, from our 2015 health education curriculum update, our efforts to increase healthy options in school stores, and our partnership with the Mat-Su Health Foundation for mini-grants to increase physical activity in schools.”

Mat-Su and other school districts across Alaska are putting their wellness policies into action. A few successes of Alaska school districts have been highlighted in the Play Every Day blog posts below:

Now is the time to help Alaska schools update their wellness policies While most districts have a school wellness policy in place, new state and federal regulations mean most Alaska districts need to update their wellness policies. New regulations from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) went into effect June 30, 2017. Rather than just requiring districts to have a wellness policy on the books, the USDA now requires districts to report on wellness policy implementation, and gives additional guidance on involving the community in developing and updating these policies. Since 2014, the USDA Smart Snacks nutrition standards specifically require that snacks and beverages sold in vending machines, school stores, snack carts, á la carte lines and fundraising efforts during the school day are nutritious and promote health. The USDA also now restricts marketing and advertising on school grounds using the same standards. If a food or beverage does not meet the Smart Snacks standards, it cannot be marketed or advertised at school. You can test your knowledge on changes to the USDA wellness policy guidelines with this six-question short quiz.

A new law in Alaska also impacts wellness policies. Alaska’s Physical Activity in Schools Law (click here for full text and more information) went into effect October 16, 2016. All schools must establish guidelines to provide opportunities for nearly an hour of physical activity for students in grades K-8 during each full school day. Districts across the state are making creative changes to ensure that students are up and moving through physical education, recess, and in-classroom activities.

For more information about school wellness policies, contact Lauren Kelsey, Obesity Prevention School Partnership Coordinator, at lauren.kelsey@alaska.gov.

Photograph caption: Nick Hanson, an American Ninja Warrior contestant from Unalakleet, visits Meadow Lakes Elementary in the Mat-Su Borough School District in 2017 to help students try some of his obstacles and teach them about the large amount of sugar hiding in sugary drinks.

​Thousands of young children from Anchorage to the Mat-Su Valley to Fairbanks will be racing along trails this September during the annual Cross Country Running Jamborees and similar fun runs.

The Anchorage School District is organizing three Running Jamborees, the North Star Borough School District in Fairbanks is organizing several races, and the Mat-Su Borough School District is scheduling one running event.

The annual fall running events for children have a long history in Alaska. The Anchorage elementary school running events started almost 30 years ago and have expanded over the years to include multiple Jamborees throughout the city, said Melanie Sutton, curriculum coordinator for ASD’s Health and Physical Education Department. This fall, there are three, free running Jamborees in the North Anchorage area, South Anchorage area, and Beach Lake area. Many Anchorage schools help their students get ready for the fun runs by organizing after-school running clubs.

The ASD Health and Physical Education (PE) Department partners with the Healthy Futures program, Play Every Day, local athletes and Olympians, and others to organize the Anchorage Jamborees that will attract about 5,000 Anchorage kids across the city. Elementary students will run different distances, depending on their ages. The race course length ranges from about ½ mile to 1 mile. All kids will receive medals when they reach the finish line.

New this year for participants and attendees will be a special water trailer from Anchorage Water & Wastewater Utility (AWWU). Play Every Day and the staff operating the utility’s “H2O 2GO water trailer” will work together to help participants quench their thirst before and after racing. The H2O 2GO trailer is equipped with multiple drinking fountains and water bottle fill-up taps for thirsty runners and observers.

“Anchorage Water & Wastewater Utility is responsible for providing our community with a healthy and reliable drinking water supply,” said Chris Kosinski, AWWU public affairs. “The Utility’s H2O 2GO water station gives students, parents and family members a fun, easy way to stay hydrated at the Jamborees.”

Here are the dates, times and locations for the upcoming Anchorage Cross Country Running Jamborees:

• North Anchorage Jamboree — Wednesday, Sept. 20, starting at 5:30 p.m., with an optional walk-through of the race course beginning at 5:00 p.m. The Jamboree will be held at the trails near Bartlett High School.

The ASD teachers coordinating the North Jamboree are Ben Elbow and Jill Singleton, both Rogers Park PE teachers.

• South Anchorage Jamboree — Saturday, Sept. 23, starting at 10 a.m., with an optional walk-through of the race course beginning at 9:30 a.m. The Jamboree will be held at the trails near Service High School.

• Beach Lake (Eagle River) Jamboree — Thursday, Sept. 28, starting at 5:30 p.m., with an optional walk-through of the race course beginning at 5 p.m. The Jamboree will be held at the Chugiak High School soccer fields and trails.

Parents are encouraged to pre-register their children for the Anchorage Jamborees at their schools. All children must have a signed waiver before participating in the event. Ask your child’s physical education teacher for more information about the Anchorage Jamboree in your area.

Here are the dates, times and locations for the upcoming running events in the Fairbanks area:

• Chena Lakes Recreation Area — Thursday, Sept. 21, starting at 5:30 p.m. The host for this event is North Pole Elementary. For more information, contact Allison Bartlett at allison.bartlett@k12northstar.org.

The running event planned for the Mat-Su Valley is called the Mat-Su Elementary Cross Country Championships and will start at 3 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 27, at Palmer High School. Fourth- and fifth-grade students can participate in the event. For more information, please contact Lyle Busbey at lyle.busbey@matsuk12.us.

Look for other physical activity events and fun runs for families on the Healthy Futures calendar. A fall running tradition in Anchorage begins next week with the Tuesday Night Race series. The series starts Sept. 12 and will take place every Tuesday through Nov. 7.

Physical education, health and classroom teachers across Alaska have volunteered their time to help make the free Healthy Futures Challenge run for so many years. Due to their involvement, thousands of young children have been able to participate six months every school year in a physical activity challenge that awards prizes for logging daily activity.

The Fall Healthy Futures Challenge begins Friday, Sept. 1, 2017, in more than 170 schools in 32 school districts across Alaska. This year, teachers in these schools will be able to benefit, too — in a new way. Teachers who coordinate the Challenge at their schools will be able to apply for one continuing education credit. They can do that after registering and completing an online course called “EDPE 590: Healthy Futures for Elementary Educators,” offered through the University of Alaska Anchorage.

"We are always looking for ways to provide value to the teachers who agree to champion the Healthy Futures Challenge at their respective schools,” said Harlow Robinson, executive director of the Alaska Sports Hall of Fame and Healthy Futures. “Providing continuing education credits is a tangible way we can honor their role in the partnership."

The online course costs $74 and was developed by Healthy Futures with support from the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium. Teachers who sign up for the course must complete all parts of the Healthy Futures Challenge. That includes registration; entering all three physical activity log periods in September, October, and November; and distributing prizes to participating students. Teachers also need to complete several short assignments that include posting to a discussion board and sharing ideas among other teachers coordinating the Healthy Futures Challenge at their schools. More information about the course can be found on the syllabus. Interested teachers can find out how to register online. Questions about the course should be directed to Alyse Loran at Healthy Futures. She can be reached at alyse@healthyfuturesak.org or (907) 360-6331.

Starting Sept. 1, students participating in the Healthy Futures Challenge will keep a log of their daily physical activity with the goal of being active at least 60 minutes a day for 15 days each month. This helps Alaska children get closer to the national recommendation of 60 minutes of physical activity every day for the best health. Students can count active time in gym class and during recess.

This three-day institute provides professional development to educators on all aspects of student and school health. Sessions will enable school health professionals to acquire the knowledge and resources to develop and support students in the areas of nutrition, physical activity, social and emotional learning, mental health, Internet safety, trauma-informed schools, youth risk behaviors, current substance abuse issues, school environmental health, bullying, and more.

The 2017 SHWI begins Monday, Oct. 30, with four preconference sessions (check the website for some preconference requirements). The conference continues Tuesday, Oct. 31, with six plenary sessions, and Wednesday, Nov. 1, with 15 breakout presentations. A full agenda can be found here.

The Institute began in 2006 as a collaboration between the Departments of Education and Early Development and Health and Social Services to provide school staff with the skills and resources to develop local school district wellness policies as required by a new federal regulation. More than a decade later, the Institute is still a collaboration of the two departments and continues to offer sessions on wellness policies. To support the attendance of educators from rural parts of Alaska (where travel costs often hinder the ability to attend), the Institute offers travel scholarships through a competitive application process. Over the years, the Institute has grown in both attendance and scope.

“Since the beginning of the Institute, the underlying core message has always been that healthier students do better academically. Healthier students are better learners, and when children spend most of their waking hours at school, their health and well-being is a very important component of their education,” said Wendy Hamilton, School Health Program Manager.

Ty Oehrtman, vice president of the American School Health Association board of directors, will be presenting at this year’s Institute on the healthy schools model from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, called the Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child (WSCC). Physical activity and healthy nutrition are two important components of the WSCC model and several breakout presentations address those topics: Healthy Drinks for Healthy Kids, The Importance of Physical Activity in Our Schools, Get Some STEAM Out of Recess, and New Initiatives in Child Nutrition.

A yearly Institute favorite, School Health Success Stories, includes a panel of professionals sharing inspiring examples of how school health is succeeding around the state. Anyone can submit a School Health Success Story nomination form for themselves or someone else. Professionals selected to present their success stories are awarded a travel scholarship to support their attendance at the SHWI.

Conference attendees include teachers, school nurses, school administrators, community health and education professionals, school counselors and anyone working with school or student health. Contact Wendy Hamilton, School Health Program Manager, at wendy.hamilton@alaska.gov or 465-2768 for more information.

About 1 out of 3 Alaska children is overweight or obese. It’s important to prevent unhealthy weight gain at a young age. Along with families, child care and early education providers can play a big role in helping Alaska’s youngest children grow up at a healthy weight.

“It’s important for child care staff, families and other caregivers to be on the same page for young children’s health,” said Diane Peck, a registered dietitian and Early Care and Education Obesity Prevention Specialist for Alaska. “The Wellness Guidelines provide tips for parents to use at home, as well as ideas for child care newsletters and events that can help inform and engage parents. Families can join child care providers in planning programs and activities to prevent childhood obesity and encourage healthy living.”

The Wellness Guidelines provide quick and easy information on a variety of topics for obesity prevention in child care facilities. Each topic contains practical tips and ideas for healthy activities in child care facilities or day care homes. These ideas include ways to keep kids active when it’s too cold or wet outside, the healthiest beverages to serve to young children, and ways to support breastfeeding mothers. The Wellness Guidelines contain resources on healthy activities, policies, kids’ books, and more.

Alaska’s new publication includes a section on traditional foods. Serving traditional foods recognizes the cultural and ethnic preferences of children and broadens all children’s experiences with food. Many foods that grow wild in Alaska are part of a traditional Alaska Native diet. Foods such as wild game meats, fish, seafood, plants, and berries are very nutritious and can be served in child care settings when proper food safety guidelines are followed. Use of these foods can address the cultural and ethnic preferences of many children, encourage community and family engagement, and reduce dependency on store-bought foods.

The Wellness Guidelines for Alaska’s Young Children were developed by the Alaska Obesity Prevention and Control Program with input from the Alaska Alliance for Healthy Kids – Early Care and Education Work Group. This work group brings together people interested in addressing childhood obesity in the child care and early education settings. The group consists of Head Start and individual child care providers, as well as organizations that provide licensing, training, and support for child care centers, such as thread, the Child and Adult Care Food Program, the Alaska Child Care Program Office, and the Women, Infants and Children Program (WIC). The group hosts a listserv to provide up-to-date, Alaska-specific information on childhood obesity prevention issues for child care providers. You can click here to join the listserv.

You can learn more about healthy eating and active play in child care facilities by clicking here. If you have a question about childhood obesity prevention, contact Peck at diane.peck@alaska.gov or (907) 269-8447.

There are large farms that feed people all across the country, and then there are little farms that feed a community of families who all know each other.

That second kind of farm is what you’ll find in the Native Village of Port Heiden, a small community hundreds of miles southwest of Anchorage on the Alaska Peninsula. This community-run farm raises animals and grows vegetables to help address scarce food sources in the wild and high food prices in the store, as well as the need to help a remote area build a more reliable storage of food in the case of emergencies, said Adrianne Christensen, the village’s director of business development.

Christensen calls the Aleut and Yup’ik community where she was born and raised a “meeting place in between villages.” It once had an Army base and thousands of residents, but now the population has fallen to just over 100 people. Though far from the rest of Alaska’s population, these residents remain close to each other and committed to their home, Christensen said. They’ve moved inland to try to escape the erosion along the coastline. They’ve relied on small airplanes to fly in everything they need and wait weeks to months for packages to arrive.

“So shipping fresh things is basically impossible,” Christensen said.

To feed their families, they rely on subsistence foods like berries and fish and one store with limited — and expensive — food options, she said. Christensen, a mother of two young boys, visited the store recently and the available produce consisted of about 10 pounds of potatoes and another 10 pounds of onions. There was nothing green or leafy on the shelves.

“A gallon of milk costs over $20,” she said.

Then there’s also the decline in traditional food options. The caribou population around Port Heiden had dwindled to the point that the residents were no longer allowed to hunt them.

“That’s what inspired us to start the reindeer farm,” Christensen said. Reindeer, she said, are domesticated caribou.

Christensen said Port Heiden residents spend entire summers hunting and gathering food for their winters, including meat from the reindeer, salmon, moose, ptarmigan, wild greens, and berries. With options becoming scarcer in the wild, residents came together and created the Meshik Farm, which stems from the original village name for Port Heiden. The village is located at the mouth of the Meshik River.

In 2015, the residents flew in 30 reindeer from the Nome area, Christensen said. Over time, they added other animals, including rabbits and chickens for their meat and eggs. They built a barn and an electric fence to keep the bears out. They used recycled items when they could, constructing a chicken house out of a reclaimed fuel drum.

“We lost a bunch of chickens to a fox this morning,” Christensen said in the middle of July, leaving their current chicken count at 15.

Like the caribou population, the rabbit population in the wild had been declining. Port Heiden residents now raise them on the farm for their meat. They also raise four pigs, one of which is pregnant. Pigs are not native to the area, but Port Heiden residents raise them because “we like bacon,” Christensen said. The residents also harvest vegetables and herbs, including squash, celery, tomatoes, potatoes, carrots, cabbage, kale, basil and dill.

Christensen said the Meshik Farm has two paid farmers, but everyone gets involved in some way. The farm is a community effort. The elders watch the animals and make sure they aren’t in danger. Adults build and clean pens, collect eggs, and care for the animals when they are sick. The children help feed and water, even slaughter, the animals. The tribe in Port Heiden sells the meat and produce to community members, and then the profit goes back into managing the farm, Christensen said. The farm website lists a dozen eggs at $12, a chicken for $25, and a rabbit for $20.

“We had people here who didn’t realize an egg tastes good because they had never eaten a fresh egg,” Christensen said.

At this point, the farm isn’t raising enough money to make it profitable, but it has brought positive changes for the community’s lifestyle. Christensen said the farming program has helped residents stop abusing drugs and kept them sober. It has helped children stay active, chasing reindeer and catching chickens. It’s inspired families to start their own personal gardens and raise animals.

“The farm really brings people together, especially when animals arrive,” Christensen said. “People are really proud of our community and what we’re doing.”

The photograph is of Adrianne Christensen, Port Heiden's director of business development, and her son. The image is courtesy of Christensen.

​Want your children to expand their tastes for vegetables beyond peas, carrots, and broccoli? A trip to a local farmers market can help. And if the idea of looking at stacks of potatoes and zucchini doesn’t grab your child’s attention, maybe they would be more interested in duck eggs, raw honey still in the comb, or even yak meat.

Yes, that’s right. There is a yak farm in Willow, and Duane Clark sells the meat at his booth at the Thankful Thursdays market at the Mall at Sears in Anchorage (indoors, Thursdays from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., all year); Town Square Park in Downtown Anchorage (Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., summer); and the Peters Creek Farmers Market (American Legion Post 33, Thursdays from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m., June-December).

Clark said it’s fun to show a customer (especially a child) a photo of a yak and explain how it is different from a cow, and what the meat is like.

“Not everyone is going to get a chance to see a yak in real life,” Clark said. “When I explain to them that yak meat is like really good beef, a lot of times they want to try it.”

Even with the more typical produce, like cucumbers or tomatoes, meeting the people who grew and harvested the vegetable can make it much more appealing to a child.

“If they can see the produce connected to someone who enjoys being there, with a happy face, and can tell the story of when (the produce) was planted, and how it grew, that can make a difference,” Clark said. “Kids can see some of the same things in any grocery store, but there, all the guy did was take them out of the box.”

Carla McConnell is the organizational volunteer for the Muldoon Farmers Market in East Anchorage (Begich Middle School, Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., late June to late September). She agreed that shopping in a farmers market is much more exciting for a child.

“There are music and activities, and it’s much more of an event than a grocery store,” McConnell said. “They can get interaction with the farmers themselves in most cases, and can ask them: ‘What is it? What does it taste like? How does it grow?’”

McConnell encourages families to ask for samples to help encourage kids to try new or different options.

“The taste of fresh, locally grown produce is completely different, a totally different taste on the palate,” she said.

Robbi Mixon is the director of the Homer Farmers Market (Ocean Drive, Wednesdays from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m., Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., late May to late September). Mixon said her market often hosts a chef to cook simple recipes in front of the market’s attendees.

“They can see that anyone can make (the featured recipes) with relative ease, and kids can help,” she said. “We also try to have kid helpers working with the chefs, so other kids can see how they can help at home.”

Getting a chance to touch and feel fruits and veggies, and being involved in the preparation process — such as washing, trimming, and chopping — can get a child interested in tasting them, said Lindsay Meyers from Meyers Farm in Bethel (Tundra Ridge, Wednesdays from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m., Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.).

“If you make it as much of a kinesthetic experience as possible, it makes kids want to put the fruits or veggies in their mouths,” Meyers said.

​For the second year in a row, the Healthy Futures Challenge will continue in the summer.

Many parents across Alaska know about the free physical activity challenge that is offered twice during each school year — once in the fall and again in the spring. The spring challenge ended in more than 160 elementary schools in April, but the Summer Healthy Futures Challenge will kick off again in June to help Alaska kids get closer to 60 minutes of daily physical activity during the summer.

“The Summer Challenge encourages kids to continue building the habit of daily physical activity through the summer months, keeping them engaged in healthy activities,” said Alyse Loran, Healthy Futures coordinator.

Healthy Futures is partnering with Camp Fire Alaska and Denali Family Services to run the summer physical activity challenge in several Anchorage locations and almost 30 rural communities that participate in Denali Family Services camps, Camp Fire’s Rural Camp program, and Camp Fire’s school-age program in Anchorage.

The school-year Healthy Futures Challenge and the Summer Challenge run in slightly different ways. To successfully complete the school-year challenge, children in grades K-6 fill out a physical activity log for an entire month. To complete the Summer Challenge, children need to fill out an activity log for a two-week period of time. During those two weeks, participating children need to be active for 60 minutes a day for at least 10 days, Loran said.

There will be four, two-week Summer Challenge periods in June and July, Loran said. Children who complete the Summer Challenge will receive a prize. The prize for a first completed log is a Healthy Futures yo-yo that lights up when it’s used.

​Play Every Day has been broadcasting a short TV message about Carolyn and Shane Iverson’s family in Bethel, and how they have fun making physical activity a part of their daily life.

Carolyn Iverson says the local children were excited to see the message about their community along the Kuskokwim River, and the importance of being active every day.

“I always ask them: Did it make you want to play?” she says. “And they all say, ‘Yes!’”

Last year, Play Every Day filmed this public service announcement (PSA) with the Iverson family. This year, the campaign is broadcasting the PSA again, but the Iverson family has some big news. The family of five is now a family of six. Their little boy named Tyson was born on Feb. 11.

The PSA can only share 30 seconds of the Iverson family’s story. Here are a few more details to see how Carolyn and Shane — and many other adults in Bethel — are helping children get out and play every day. Carolyn is Yup’ik, grew up in Akiak until age 5, and has lived in Bethel for years. That’s where she met her husband, Shane. They have three boys and a girl — all under the age of 8. Carolyn is a social worker with the Lower Kuskokwim School District and Shane is the general manager for KYUK.

The Iversons are busy, but they work hard to make sure their whole family is active every day. They limit TV time and don’t have video games. They make physical activity a daily priority by finding ways to weave activity into their family’s day.

“Sometimes people think physical activity needs to be separate from their daily lives,” Carolyn says. “When you can incorporate it into your daily lifestyle, that’s when it will be easiest to maintain.”

Activity is a part of the kids’ school day. The older boys do Native dance at the Yup’ik Immersion School. After school, the Iverson children play basketball, wrestle, do judo, or dance. When school’s out for the summer, they play soccer, pick berries or take trips to the sand pits to run around and play. They often take a boat to their fish camp so they can fish together on the river.

The Iverson family has found a way to be active and help the community be active at the same time. In the summer, Shane coaches soccer while his children play the game. During the school year, Carolyn coaches girls basketball and Shane assists. Carolyn says one of Bethel’s strengths is its sense of community.

“There a lot of people — adults — who put time and energy into giving kids multiple different kinds of opportunities throughout the year,” she says.

Carolyn says she gives her time to help young kids because she wants them to think about the importance of being physically active. She wants to inspire them to maintain that level of activity throughout adulthood. She also wants to help them feel better about who they are, and start thinking about their goals for the future.

“We are trying to raise our kids to choose to be active and engage in things that make them feel good,” Carolyn says.

Carolyn says she maintained her own active lifestyle while pregnant with Tyson. She helped her sister coach cross country running during the early part of her pregnancy and coached the young girls basketball team until she had her baby.

This is how the Iversons are helping children in their community be physically active. What can you do in yours?

Sugary drinks are the No.1 source of added sugar in our daily diets. And most of these drinks come loaded with calories with little — if any — nutritional value.

These sugary drinks are more than just soda. Some of the more popular sweetened drinks in Alaska cupboards include the powdered mixes and fruit-flavored beverages. Alaska parents are often surprised to hear that sports drinks and vitamin drinks — drinks marketed to appear like they are healthier options — are really just loaded with sugar. There can be eight teaspoons of sugar in a 20-ounce vitamin drink, and nine teaspoons of sugar in a similar-sized sports drink.

Play Every Day is taking its message to television, websites, and the walls of schools and health clinics across Alaska to show how these sugary drinks add up to serious health problems for children and adults. Its public service announcement opens with this line: “It’s just one soda with dinner. What’s the harm?”

Sugary drinks are linked with many harms that can start in childhood and lead to a lifetime of serious health risks. Sugary drinks can lead to unhealthy weight gain. One out of three Alaska children is overweight or obese. They can lead to type 2 diabetes — a serious health condition that is being increasingly diagnosed among children even though it used to be considered a disease of adults only. Sugary drinks can lead to cavities, and can increase the risk of heart disease.

Play Every Day’s 30-second video message flashes back to the sugary drinks a child consumes at breakfast, lunch, snack and dinner. At the same time, a split screen shows the sugar adding up in a glass. By the end, the child consumes 38 teaspoons of sugar — almost a cup — just from sugary drinks that day. The take-home message is to skip all those sugary drinks and choose water or low-fat milk for the best health.

The U.S. Dietary Guidelines for Americans has set limits on the amount of added sugar to consume each day for the best health. The guidelines recommend limiting our added sugars to less than 10 percent of the calories we eat and drink each day. Added sugars are sugars, syrups and other sweeteners that are added to foods or drinks when they are processed or prepared. Sugary drinks — like sodas and sports drinks — are loaded with added sugars. You can read more to learn how you can help your family meet these recommended limits for daily added sugar.

Nick Hanson, the American Ninja Warrior from Unalakleet, has designed an obstacle course and will be challenging students to try it at eight Mat-Su Borough schools on May 2- 4, 2017. One obstacle he will be demonstrating is a 14 1/2-foot curved wall — the same height wall that he climbs during the national TV American Ninja Warrior competition that features creative obstacles.

Hanson is visiting local schools to show young children that daily physical activity is healthy and fun. Hanson also will focus on other choices he makes to stay healthy, including not drinking soda, smoking tobacco or abusing drugs.

The last soda Hanson drank was in 2003, when he was a high school athlete. He used to drink multiple cans of soda a day, but when he gave it up, he started to feel better.

For the past two years, Hanson has been a contestant on American Ninja Warrior and competes as the “Eskimo Ninja.” Hanson, a world record holder in the World Eskimo-Indian Olympics, has been invited back to compete and will be on the show airing June 12, 2017. When he’s home, Hanson practices every day on the Ninja course he built using driftwood on the beach of Unalakleet.

At his first Mat-Su school visit May 2, Hanson will be joined by the Play Every Day campaign. Last year, Play Every Day partnered with the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium to film a 30-second public service announcement that shows Hanson helping Unalakleet children and families get physically active in many different ways. He has coached children in several sports, including volleyball and Native Youth Olympics. He organizes a free running club for people of all ages in the summer. And when the kids play hide-and-go-seek and other games, Hanson joins in the fun. Play Every Day and ANTHC are broadcasting Hanson’s physical activity message to Alaska families on TV and online this spring and summer.

Looking to pick up a skinny caramel latte at the Upbeat Cafe at Colony High School? It’s going to come with calorie-free flavoring.

Want to grab a quick slice of pizza from the Snack Shack run by the high school’s activities program? Now it’s got a tasty whole wheat crust. You might also notice that the portion size is a bit smaller — 10 slices per pie this year compared to the 8 slices they sold before.

Starting in the 2014-15 school year, the Smart Snacks nutrition standards require that “competitive foods” — snacks and beverages sold in vending machines, school stores, snack carts, á la carte lines and fundraising efforts during the school day — are nutritious and promote health.

While serving healthy foods to students during the school day makes sense, it can be challenging to put these standards into action. Many of these stores are run by volunteer clubs and organizations, rather than a school nutrition specialist. Detailed nutrition standards can look overwhelming to volunteers if they don’t get the necessary support.

Rather than trying to navigate the new standards, some districts chose to unplug vending machines and shutter school stores during the school day, only opening for evening sporting events (foods sold more than a half an hour after the school day ends are not required to meet the Smart Snacks nutrition standards). Unfortunately, the clubs and groups running the stores lose that source of revenue when there are many healthy choices they could be selling.

The Mat-Su Borough School District has found a way to meet those standards, continue offering foods and drinks during the school day, and bring in revenue. Rachel Kroon, member of the district’s wellness team, worked with school stores, cafés and coffee shops throughout the district to meet nutrition standards.

“We made individual school site visits to check their current menus and let them sample some Smart Snack-compliant items,” she said. "We delivered a folder with all the Smart Snack Guidelines and gave them a list of snack items they could buy from local stores and Amazon. Then we followed up with site-specific recommendations to the clubs and groups running the stores.”

Thinking about making a change at your school? Here are some tips for a Smart Snacks makeover:

• Share the Guide to Smart Snacks in Schools with anyone who manages a school store or snack bar, coordinates food-based fundraisers during the school day, or sells food on campus outside of the School Breakfast and Lunch Program. • Check current snacks and beverage inventories using the Alliance for a Healthier Generation Product Calculator. Use the Beverage Inventory and Food Inventory worksheets to help you document and stay organized. • Browse for compliant products using the Smart Food Planner or work with your school food service to order Smart Snacks-compliant foods through their vendors.• Consider working with your school food service program to prepare Smart Snacks-compliant foods like muffins, pizzas, sandwiches, or salads for sale in a school store.• Involve students in taste-testing new options.• Use Smarter Lunchroom strategies, such as placing healthier items at the front of the counter; using signs withfun, descriptive names to make them visible and attractive; and pricing healthier items at a lower cost than less healthy items.• Make sure the Smart Snacks standards are included in your district’s required school wellness policy.

One of the best ways to help young Alaskans grow up at a healthy weight is to pass and implement a strong school wellness policy. Evidence of the importance of a strong school wellness policy (also known as a student nutrition and physical activity policy) is so clear that the federal government requires that every school district receiving funds for school breakfast or lunch have a policy. Alaska school surveys indicate a clear relationship between implementing Smart Snacks nutrition standards and the declining availability of candy and salty snacks in Alaska schools.

​Each year, the Governor’s Council on Disabilities & Special Education awards its Inclusive Practice Award to one or more educators who work to ensure students experiencing disabilities have the opportunity to be included in school activities. Nominations for the award are made by parents, students and educators to recognize the outstanding efforts of those around the state who provide positive learning environments for students experiencing disabilities and their peers.

The 2017 winner of the Inclusive Practice Award is the Service High School Partners Club in Anchorage. The Service High School Partners Club, created in 2001, is made up of 30 students with intellectual disabilities, eight staff members, 72 peer teachers, and 100 partners who work together on educational goals, life skills activities, and community inclusion. Led by life skills and special education teacher Adam Ahonen, the Partners Club works to develop activities that both promote awareness and inclusion of all students.

The Partners Club has a coffee shop and a Special Olympics group, and also works with multiple sports teams. Observers and participants say the Partners Club has encouraged a school culture at Service High where students with disabilities are actively included in school assemblies, drama productions, choir, prom and dances, sporting events, and after school activities.

Ahonen says the club also participates in community events, such as entering the Fur Rondy snow sculpting competition. This spring, he is excited about the chance for Partners Club members to participate in track and field.

“Alaska is the first state to have a unified sporting event, involving both special education and regular curriculum students, that is recognized and sanctioned by the state’s school activities organization,” he said. “That’s exciting. The most important part of this for me is seeing that Partners Club is a catalyst for social inclusion and enhancing the overall community in our schools.”

Rachel Robinson, a Partners Club member with Down syndrome, said that she loves the activities she gets to take part in, including floor hockey, bowling, skiing, basketball and cheerleading.

“I was the captain for cheerleading for hockey,” she said.

Service High School also offers a related elective class in which students in the general education population can sign up to act as peer teachers for students experiencing disabilities in the life skills program.

Erica Christopherson is one of those peer teachers. She accompanies Rachel and her classmates experiencing disabilities while they carry out basic jobs around school — washing dishes in the cafeteria or shredding papers in the office — and guides them while they complete their daily journal entries.

Although Christopherson works with the Partners Club for school credit, she also spends a lot of her own time there, simply because she enjoys it.

“Mr. A’s room is always open and welcoming,” she said. “I’m in here almost every day at lunch, just hanging out with the students and the other peer teachers. It’s a lot of fun.”

In 2015, Play Every Day created a video public service announcement focused on the importance of daily physical activity for children of all abilities. Congratulations to the Partners Club and other nominees for the 2017 Inclusive Practice Award for putting that goal into action.

Below is the complete list of nominees for the Governor’s Council on Disabilities & Special Education 2017 Inclusive Practice Award. Congratulations to all nominees for their important work educating and supporting Alaska children of all abilities.

For the best health, youth need 60 minutes of physical activity every day, but only a fraction of youth meet that target. For example, in 2015, only one in five Alaska high school students got 60 minutes of physical activity every day.

For good health, even one sugary drink a day is too much, but almost half of Alaska youth say they drank at least one sugary drink — such as a soda or sports drink — every single day.

A lack of daily activity and daily consumption of sugary drinks can lead to unhealthy weight gain. Today, too many Alaska high school students are overweight or obese.

We know all of this about Alaska teens because, like most other states, Alaska participates in the Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS). The YRBS is a paper and pencil survey of Alaska students in public traditional and alternative high schools. Alternative schools teach students who face higher risks and benefit from a non-traditional school setting. The voluntary, anonymous survey is a joint project between the Alaska Departments of Health and Social Services and Education and Early Development, with support from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, school districts, and staff.

The YRBS collects information about Alaska teens, including their behaviors that affect health. Students across the state complete the YRBS in odd-numbered years, with the 2017 YRBS taking place right now in high schools from Utqiagvik (formerly Barrow) to Ketchikan. About 7,000 high school students from about 30 school districts participate in the survey every other year.

“Many different organizations rely on the YRBS, including state programs, school districts, tribal organizations, and statewide and community coalitions,” said Kate Oliver, statewide coordinator for the Alaska YRBS Program. “These organizations use YRBS results for needs assessments, to design and evaluate programs, and to apply for grant funding that supports projects to improve the health and wellness of Alaska youth.”

The statewide YRBS results focus on the health and risk behaviors of both traditional and alternative high school students in Alaska. In addition, many school districts choose to conduct their own YRBS to give them information about their districts’ students. Alaska results can be compared with national YRBS data to better understand how Alaska’s doing, and historical data from the YRBS can be used to assess the risk behaviors of Alaska teens over time.

In 2015, YRBS results revealed important information about the physical activity level, time spent in front of computers and televisions, sugary drink consumption, and body weights of Alaska teens.

Physical ActivityIn 2015, 21% of Alaska traditional high school students got the recommended 60 minutes of physical activity every day, and even fewer (16%) Alaska alternative high school students met this mark. Among both groups, a higher percentage of males than females were physically active every day. Compared to U.S. traditional high school students, fewer Alaska students met the 60-minutes-a-day target. There hasn’t been a significant change in daily physical activity in over five years.

Screen TimeIn 2015, one in three Alaska teens (traditional and alternative high school students) spent three or more hours playing video and computer games or using a computer for something other than school work on an average school day. Compared to the United States, fewer Alaska teens spend as much time in front of a screen, but Alaska is still seeing a concerning trend. Since 2007, the percentage of traditional high school students using these devices for three hours or more every day has increased significantly.

Sugary Drink ConsumptionForty-six percent of traditional high school students consumed at least one sugary drink, such as a soda or sports drink, every day in 2015. Over half (55%) of Alaska alternative high school students consumed at least one sugary drink each day.

Overweight and ObesityIn 2015, 17% of traditional high school students were overweight and 14% were obese, which was similar to national YRBS results. However, a significantly higher percentage of Alaska alternative high school students were obese (23%), as compared to traditional high school students.

Are you interested in the results of the 2017 Alaska YRBS? Watch for a preliminary report in the winter of 2017. A full 2017 YRBS report will be published in 2018. If you’d like to learn more about the Alaska YRBS, visit http://dhss.alaska.gov/dph/Chronic/Pages/yrbs/yrbs.aspx.

​Making small shifts in our food choices can add up over time. This year's theme for National Nutrition Month® in March inspires us to start with small changes in our eating habits – one forkful at a time. So whether you are planning meals to prepare at home or making selections when eating out, Put Your Best Fork Forward to help find your healthy eating style.

“Healthy eating should be enjoyable and ‘doable’ for your entire life”, says Diane Peck, registered dietitian nutritionist with the Alaska Obesity Prevention and Control Program. “Focus on eating healthy foods that you like and being active to help stay healthy and manage your weight.”

Think nutrient-rich, rather than "good" or "bad" foods. The majority of your food choices should be packed with vitamins, minerals, fiber and other nutrients, and lower in calories. Here are a few tips for making smart food choices:

• Choose healthy drinks. Drink water or low-fat milk, instead of sugary drinks. For variety, add fresh or frozen fruit to a glass or pitcher of cold water, try unsweetened hot or cold caffeine-free tea, or add a splash of 100% fruit juice to club soda or seltzer water.

• Eat more fruits and vegetables. All forms of fruits and vegetables provide healthful benefits – fresh, frozen, canned and dried. Traditional foods –​ such as berries, sourdock, and beach greens – are especially high in nutrients.

• Focus on variety. Choose a variety of healthful foods in all food groups to help reduce the risk of preventable, lifestyle-related chronic diseases, including heart disease, type 2 diabetes, some cancers and obesity. The U.S. Dietary Guidelines for Americans encourage us to eat a variety of colorful fruits and vegetables; whole grains, such as oats and 100% whole wheat bread; healthy proteins, such as lean meats, poultry, fish, beans, eggs and nuts; and low-fat or fat-free milk and milk products.

• Vitamin D. Vitamin D is important for strong bones and may contribute to overall good health. Alaskans should select foods that are high in vitamin D, such as Alaska salmon and vitamin D fortified non- or low-fat milk, and should talk with their health care providers about vitamin D and the risks and benefits of supplementation.

• Play every day. Choose activities that you enjoy and want to do each day. Remember, children need at least 60 minutes of physical activity every day. Find fun activities that get the whole family moving, like sledding or going for a walk.

ChooseMyPlate.gov has resources to help you achieve your healthy eating goals this month, and all year long.

National Nutrition Month® is a nutrition education and information campaign created annually in March by the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. The campaign focuses on the importance of making informed food choices and developing good eating and physical activity habits. Play games, download tip sheets, view recipe videos and more at http://sm.eatright.org/NNMinfo.

​Young children across Alaska are learning how to become healthy eaters and active kids by doing what comes naturally to them — looking at books and playing with toys.

Child care providers play an important role in helping to develop healthy eating and physical activity habits in young children. The Alaska Obesity Prevention and Control Program worked with the national Let's Move initiative and Thread, Alaska’s Child Care Resource and Referral Network, to provide training and resources to child care centers and day care homes to support healthy eating and physical activity habits. These habits include providing water to thirsty children, rather than sugary drinks, and increasing time spent in active play.

“Our goal is to help the youngest Alaskans grow up at a healthy weight,” said Diane Peck with the Alaska Obesity Prevention and Control Program. “Child care programs can provide a healthy environment for children to eat, play, grow, and develop healthy habits for life.”

To help make these changes fun for kids, the program provides resources that encourage healthy eating and active play, such as age-appropriate physical activity equipment, fruit and vegetable food models, and children’s books highlighting healthy foods and kids being active.

Kelley Polasky, with Friendly Days Childcare in Juneau, recently completed the program.

“I've really enjoyed the toys and resources provided through the Let's Move initiative. The resources gave us great ideas for organized and free play,” she said. “The kids especially love the wrist ribbons! They are played with every day. From free dance to organized movements, they are a hit! We also have a toy kitchen, and the healthy toy foods allow the children to cook and pretend serving foods that are good for them. ”

They’ll tell you these sugary drinks are linked to weight gain and type 2 diabetes.

But fewer Alaska parents know that sugary drinks are also linked with heart disease.

During this Valentine’s week — when all of the focus is on the heart — here are a few things to know about how limiting sugary drinks may keep your heart healthy.

Sugary drinks include more than just sodas. They include sweetened fruit-flavored drinks, sports and energy drinks, sweetened powdered mixes, vitamin-enhanced water beverages, and tea and coffee drinks with added syrups and sugars. These drinks can contain a high amount of added sugar. A typical 20-ounce bottle of soda or a sweetened fruit-flavored drink can have 16 teaspoons of added sugar. A tall glass of a sweetened powdered drink mix can have 11 teaspoons of added sugar. A 20-ounce sports drink can have 9 teaspoons of added sugar.

Kendra Sticka, a registered dietitian and associate professor at the University of Alaska Anchorage, said studies show that when you increase the percentage of calories that come from added sugars, you increase your risk of dying from heart disease. This increased risk was reported in the 2014 “Journal of the American Medical Association Internal Medicine,” and was found after adjusting for several other factors, including Body Mass Index (BMI), diet quality, and physical activity and education levels.

Another recent study published in “Circulation” showed that each sugary drink matters in terms of health. After adjusting for a number of factors (smoking, physical activity, BMI, diet quality and more), the study showed that each additional sugary drink per day increased the risk of heart disease. Sugary drink consumption was associated with a higher level of inflammation in the body, and inflammation is a risk factor for heart disease, Sticka said.

“Far too many children consume too much added sugar, and that puts them at risk for serious health problems,” said Karol Fink, registered dietitian and manager of Alaska’s Obesity Prevention and Control Program.

Children and adults are drinking too many sugary beverages, and the added sugar from these drinks is associated with an increase in unhealthy cholesterol in the blood – a risk factor for heart disease. Atherosclerosis — a condition in which fats and cholesterol can build up and harden and narrow your blood vessels — can start in childhood, the AHA Scientific Statement said. Atherosclerosis can lead to heart attacks, strokes and death.

According to the AHA Scientific Statement, sugary drinks contribute about half of the added sugar in children’s diets. They also provide little to no nutritional value. Given that, the AHA recommends that children and adolescents limit their added sugar intake every day and limit their sugary drink intake to 1 or fewer 8-ounce drinks each week. That’s fewer ounces than you’ll find in most sugary drinks sold on the shelves at grocery stores.

Cutting back on sugary drinks, in whatever way you can, will make a difference in your health.

“Any decrease is going to be a benefit,” Sticka said.

Want to reduce the number of sugary drinks you serve your children? Find ways to make water an easier choice for your family. Have cold pitchers of water ready for your children in the refrigerator. Cut up fruits, like lemons or limes, and put them in a glass of water for a refreshing drink. Give your child their own special water bottle, or straw for their glass, to make it a drink they’ll want to choose.

​This winter, about 500 Anchorage elementary school children will get the chance to try a new way to enjoy our long, snowy winters by cross country skiing.

Throughout January and February, the Municipality of Anchorage’s Parks and Recreation Department is hosting students from 10 elementary schools, mainly Title 1 schools, (see list of planned field trips below) at the Lidia Selkregg Chalet in Russian Jack Springs Park for ski field trips.

“For many of these kids, it’s the first time they are going to have the opportunity to ski,” said Margaret Timmerman, recreation coordinator for the program. “The whole idea is that we are a winter city and we want them to be aware of, and have a chance to participate in, positive healthy winter activities.”

The Outreach Ski Program began in 1995 and has been offering field trips since 2012 for local students who likely would not otherwise have a chance to try the sport. Timmerman said Parks and Recreation supplies waxless skis, boots and poles for students, as well as trip chaperones and school staff. Parks and Recreation staff and community volunteers provide ski lessons and tips to help students learn to ski.

“We are always happy to have volunteers,” said Timmerman. “And you don’t have to be an elite skier to help out. We have the full gamut of folks that can tie shoes, put on mittens and zip jackets, all the way to professional skiers. You just need to enjoy working with kids and be able to be outside for an hour and a half.”

Students from elementary schools not scheduled for field trips can try out the sport for free at the annual Ski 4 Kids event, to be held this year on Saturday, March 4, 2017, from noon to 4 p.m. at the Kincaid Park Chalet in Anchorage.

Kids up to age 14 can ski a 3K loop, timed or untimed, and there is a shorter, read-along storybook trail designed for skiers under age 5 as well. Each child who finishes the route receives a medal and a goodie bag.

“And there are a lot of other activities to try after the ski event,” said Timmerman. “We’ll have showshoeing, orienteering, a treasure hunt, an obstacle course, and more.”

Register for Ski 4 Kids at www.anchoragenordicski.com. There is no charge for the event, but donations are requested to help keep the Outreach Ski Program going.

​In two days, it’s a good bet that 1 out of 5 Alaska elementary school students will start a free challenge to get out and play.

It’s called the Healthy Futures Challenge, a three-month physical activity challenge that takes place each spring and each fall in kindergarten through sixth grade. Healthy Futures is the signature program of the nonprofit Alaska Sports Hall of Fame and has been offered through a partnership with Alaska elementary schools for more than a decade. The number of participating schools and students has increased significantly in recent years. Last fall, almost 15,000 individual children successfully completed the physical activity challenge and won prizes.

The 2017 Spring Healthy Futures Challenge starts Wednesday, Feb. 1, in about half of Alaska’s elementary schools from Kiana to Klukwan. This spring, 193 schools in districts across the state have signed up to take part.

The Spring Challenge runs in February, March and April. Students keep a log of their daily physical activity with the goal of being active at least 60 minutes a day for 15 days each month. This helps Alaska children get closer to the national recommendation of 60 minutes of physical activity every day for the best health.

Participation is free, and children win fun prizes throughout the challenge for being active. This spring, the prizes for completing a Healthy Futures log are a flashing bike light for February, a puzzle ball for March, and a yoyo for April. Participating schools that achieve at least 20 percent student participation in the Healthy Futures Challenge will be eligible to receive a $200 grant. Schools can use this money to purchase educational materials or equipment that supports student physical activity.

Is your school signed up for the Spring Healthy Futures Challenge? It’s not too late to sign up online.

It’s also not too late to sign up your school for PLAAY Day. PLAAY stands for Positive Leadership for Active Alaska Youth. So far, 81 elementary schools across Alaska have signed up to participate in PLAAY Day on Feb. 23, 2017, the first statewide effort to get thousands of Alaska children physically active — all at the same time. At 10 a.m. that Thursday, children will gather in school gyms, classrooms, outside, or in recreation centers and join a free, live videoconferencing session filled with different physical activities meant just for kids. Go online to learn more about this initiative of the Alaska Sports Hall of Fame and sign up to register your school for PLAAY Day.

Parents know the kitchen table can be a battleground. Trying to get kids to eat, let alone eat healthy foods, can be the cause of many stressful meals. How will these food fights impact children later in their lives?

Ellyn Satter is a registered dietitian and family therapist who has dedicated her career and writings to teaching people how to eat and feed their families with health and joy. She has become an international authority on best child feeding practices. Later in her career, she established the Ellyn Satter Institute (ESI) with the goal of continuing her life’s work. ESI teaches positive, joyful, and nutritionally responsible feeding and eating by reaching out to parents, clinicians, educators, researchers and policy makers, offering guidance in both prevention and treatment strategies.

2. What is the “Division of Responsibility” when feeding children?

Satter’s feeding model, “Division of Responsibility in Feeding,” is recognized as a best practice by the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, Head Start, and the Women, Infants and Children Program (WIC).

Satter’s Division of Responsibility says that parents have certain jobs with regard to feeding their kids, and kids have their own jobs when it comes to eating. The Division of Responsibility spells out at each stage of child development what the “boundaries” are when it comes to feeding and eating.

3. You say that parents have a job to feed children, and children have a job to eat the foods they’re given. Explain what you mean by parents’ feeding jobs and children’s eating jobs?

Parents often describe meal times as stressful and filled with power struggles. The Division of Responsibility encourages parents to take a leadership role in feeding. Parents are responsible for the what, when and where of feeding, and children determine whether and how much they eat.

4. Many people are confused and stressed about what they eat and what they feed their children. How can we make eating more enjoyable?

It’s so difficult to tune out the noise that’s all around us. Everywhere we turn, whether it be from public policy, the medical field or pop culture, we are told what to eat, what not to eat, to move more and to weigh less. The noise easily turns into preoccupation about our food, our bodies, our kids’ food and their bodies. It becomes more and more difficult to tune in and trust ourselves when it comes to eating and feeding our kids. The noise and lack of trust are barriers to getting a meal on the table, to sit down with one another and enjoy one another and the food we share. When we become clear about our goal, that is to be together and share the same food, we bring the joy back to eating. When parents feed according to a division of responsibility, mealtimes become more relaxed and enjoyable for everyone.

5. How can parents feed their children to help them grow up at a healthy weight?

Research supports what we have seen for years. That is, when parents focus on the feeding relationship and learn to trust themselves and their children, kids do better with eating. Kids are more likely to grow up in the bodies that are right for them.

6. Why are you speaking to child care providers about the best ways to feed young children?

Being with children for so many hours a day, child care providers are in a key position to help kids develop a healthy relationship with food. They are tuned in to behavioral issues, familiar with developmental stages, and are ready to consider them in the context of feeding. Childhood obesity is a hot button topic ever present in the school environment. It’s important to equip child care providers with tools that contribute to the health and wellbeing of the kids they are charged to care for. And because they are in a unique position to connect with parents, the tools and principles can be shared for practice at home.

Chocolate milk is one of a number of drinks that contain added sugars. Sugar can add up when children drink sweetened beverages at breakfast, lunch, snack and dinner – and then eat sugary foods as well. There is evidence that consuming sugary drinks is linked to obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease and tooth decay. One year ago, the U.S. Dietary Guidelines for Americans set its first recommended limit for daily sugar intake, stating that adults and kids should limit their added sugars to less than 10 percent of the calories they consume every day. For a child, that means just one bottle of soda (16 teaspoons of sugar) or one tall glass of a powdered, sugary drink mix (11 teaspoons of sugar) is too much and exceeds that daily limit of sugar.In 2014, the Ketchikan Gateway Borough School District adopted its new wellness policy that doesn’t allow chocolate or flavored milk to be sold as part of the National School Lunch or Breakfast Program. That policy holds for the elementary, middle and high schools serving 2,200 students in the district.

“Ketchikan’s choice to stop selling flavored milk at school is a great example of a district working with their food service to address parent concerns about added sugars in their children’s diets,” said Lauren Kelsey, School Partnership Coordinator with the Alaska Obesity Prevention and Control Program. “Norms can change pretty fast in a school district. Having the policy in place during the past three years means pretty soon there won’t be kids in elementary schools who remember when chocolate milk was an option.”

The Ketchikan policy promotes other areas of nutrition, including using Alaska farm and fish products when possible in school meals and snacks, providing salads and fruits to be prominently displayed in dining areas to encourage students to choose healthy foods, and stating that food rewards or incentives should not be used in classrooms to encourage student achievement or good behavior.

“All foods available in district schools during the school day shall be offered to students with consideration for promoting school health and reducing childhood obesity,” the wellness policy states.

The Ketchikan School District’s school wellness policy is up for review again this winter. Henry said the district is considering updating its policy to model the State of Alaska Gold Standard School Wellness Policy, which was revised in 2016 to align with new federal regulations and a new state law requiring almost an hour of physical activity during each school day. Ketchikan’s District Wellness Committee meets Jan. 18 to discuss revising the policy.

Ketchikan schools have also added a number of new ways to help students drink water during the school day.

A student at Houghtaling Elementary School gathered more than 100 signatures from students and staff for a petition presented to the Parent Teacher Association asking to get a water bottling filling station installed. The PTA unanimously approved the petition, and the filling station is on order, Henry said. Ketchikan’s high school has two water bottle filling stations. Tongass School of Arts and Sciences, a charter school for grades PK-6, also has two water coolers and recently won a national award that will help pay for a water bottle filling station, said Cindy Moody, health aide at Tongass. All Tongass classrooms also allow students to keep water bottles at their desks, Moody said. If the students don’t have bottles, the school puts cups next to the water coolers so the students can serve themselves when they are thirsty, she said.

“It’s cool, it’s fresh, it looks appealing,” Moody said about the water coolers. When the cups run out, the kids are quick to let staff know. “Which they do daily,” Moody said, “because they drink a lot of water.”

To read more about Ketchikan’s school wellness program, visit the district’s website. A copy of the district’s wellness policy also can be found on the Department of Education’s wellness policy website.

​Kids today live in a busy world of school, homework, sports, and activities designed to keep them busy and nurture their growing minds and bodies. But doing nothing is important, too. Well, not really nothing, but taking time to relax the mind and body, stepping away from the pressures of the world, and learning to be still and calm are also important to healthy development.

Yoga can help children learn techniques for relaxation, frustration and anger management, and handling stress and anxiety. Physically, it also helps with flexibility, strength, coordination and body awareness.

“Standing poses build posture and strength. Balancing poses develop focus, strength, balance and poise. Difficult poses build self-esteem by teaching children that they can achieve what they set out to do all on their own. And relaxation poses reduce stress and teach kids how to focus.”

Pretending to be animals is a good way of introducing basic yoga poses, said Johnson.

“Luckily, most children love to talk, and they love to move — both of which can happen in yoga,” she said. “Children will jump at the chance to assume the role of animals, trees, flowers, warriors. Your role is to step back and allow them to bark in downward dog pose, hiss in cobra, and meow in cat stretch. They can also recite the ABCs or 123s as they are holding poses.”

Many yoga studios offer classes specifically for kids, but if there are none close by, you can still get the benefits of yoga by practicing with your children at home. It doesn’t have to be formal or even planned ahead of time. With just a few simple poses and enough space to spread out arms and legs, kids and parents can both have fun while benefitting from the practice.

“The first step is to just work on taking a deep breath in, slowly through your nose, and then slowly release your breath through your mouth,” said Johnson. “While you and your child are doing this, encourage your child to try to only think about the breath coming in, warming up, and going back out. This can be a life skill to help your child relax.”

After a few minutes of breathing, try some simple poses together. There are many good books, websites and videos available that demonstrate simple kid-friendly poses (see the list below). Let it be a fun, relaxed experience, and let them lead the practice, if possible, Johnson said.

“Sometimes my kids want to do poses and try new ones,” she said. “Sometimes they like to do yoga to songs. Sometimes they want to play games like Toe-Ga where we pick up pom-poms with our toes. And sometimes, they just want to do some guided relaxation.”

As your children become more comfortable with the practice, introduce some more challenging poses, ask them to plan a series of three poses in a flow so they can see how poses can fit together, or read a yoga book together and try out the poses as they are presented.

Two or three 20-minute yoga sessions a week can help most children, even those living with special needs, become more calm and handle life’s frustrations better, said Johnson.

“I have a daughter with mild-to-moderate autism and a stepson with ADHD,” said Johnson. “Yoga has helped them with self-regulation and muscle tone, and with techniques they can use to help them calm down if they have anxiety.”

​Year after year, our partner the Healthy Futures program has been going after a goal. Could the program get more than 200 elementary schools in Alaska to sign up for its free challenge that awards prizes to children who log enough physical activity each month?

But this fall, Healthy Futures finally hit — and passed — its goal. All across Alaska, 209 elementary schools signed up so that thousands of Alaska kids could be supported and motivated to log 60 minutes of physical activity a day.

With schools across the state participating in the Challenge, more than 15,000 Alaska kids in grades K-6 regularly log their physical activity on a simple form and turn it into teachers who help track their progress. Students fill out their activity log every day, and those students who complete at least 60 minutes of physical activity on 15 or more days each month win a Healthy Futures prize. Schools with high student participation also can receive small cash grants from Healthy Futures to put toward physical activity equipment and programs.

To learn more about the Healthy Futures Challenge, visit the Elementary Challenge website.

PLAAY is not spelled wrong. It stands for Positive Leadership for Active Alaska Youth. It’s an effort organized by our partner, the Alaska Sports Hall of Fame, to help community leaders improve how they work with Alaska’s youth on physical activity, health and wellness. PLAAY Day is set for Thursday, Feb. 23. Schools and groups across Alaska will organize a half-hour session at 10 a.m. when students in elementary schools will get up out of their seats and get moving.

Children will get together in school gyms, classrooms, outside, or in recreation centers. Students from the University of Alaska Anchorage Department of Health, Physical Education and Recreation will join athletes to lead the kids in an organized — and synchronized — fun session of physical activity. The Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium (ANTHC) and GCI will link all of these children in different communities through a free, live videoconferencing session. Communities that are not able to access that live session will receive a recorded video of the physical activities that they can use to participate in the Feb. 23 event.

“We know the benefits of physical activity,” said Harlow Robinson, executive director of the Alaska Sports Hall of Fame. “It is one of the most cost-effective ways to improve a child’s self-worth, which in turn empowers them to recognize they can make active choices for improving their health.”

Physical activity is linked to an increase in concentration and focus at school, improved classroom attendance and behavior, better academic performance, and improved overall health, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. PLAAY Day will help Alaska kids get closer to the national recommendation of 60 minutes of physical activity needed every day for the best health. It will help children complete the February Healthy Futures Challenge, when kids across Alaska will be logging their daily physical activity through logs distributed at elementary schools. PLAAY Day is also an activity that goes toward addressing SB 200, the new Alaska law requiring schools to provide almost one hour of daily physical activity for all students in grades kindergarten through 8.

Last year, the Alaska Sports Hall of Fame helped organize the first PLAAY Summit focused on improving youth’s health. This year, the PLAAY Day physical activity event at Alaska schools on Feb. 23 will be followed by the PLAAY Summit on Feb. 24 and 25 in Anchorage at ANTHC. The Summit will feature experts from around the state who will help teachers, parents, nurses, coaches, administrators and other leaders address many areas of youth and adolescent health, including psychological, social and emotional development. The PLAAY Summit also will focus on physical activity as a way to improve health.

Partners of the PLAAY Day and PLAAY Summit include Healthy Futures; ANTHC; the Children’s Hospital of Providence; the University of Alaska Anchorage Department of Health, Physical Education & Recreation; the Chugach School District; GCI; the Anchorage School District Department of Health and Physical Education; Play Every Day; the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services; King Career Center, and others.

The principal is going to announce your name over the intercom during morning announcements. You’re going to be invited to walk down the hallway to the main office and pick up your signed birthday certificate. Then you will pick out your own book that you get to keep in honor of your birthday.

What you won’t get is a cupcake in your classroom. That’s because Stedman Elementary is one Alaska school that has changed its birthday celebration policy to recognize children’s special day in a healthy way.

The new practice of handing out books — not treats — started when the staff at Stedman Elementary School realized that they didn’t want to have cupcakes come in to the school for every child’s birthday.

“We decided that we could find other ways to celebrate the birthday that would make the student feel special and recognize the student on their special day,” said Teri Toland, principal of the school that teaches about 230 children in kindergarten through fifth grade.

Toland said the kids love having their names announced and walking down to the office to pick up their books. The kindergarten classrooms take the celebration a step further. Every child in the classroom makes a special card for the birthday student. The card says “You are 6 years old today. If I could give you anything, it would be ________.” The children get to fill in that blank with whatever gift they’d like to give and draw a picture of it.

“Children who don’t have a lot of money are able to give a really extravagant gift,” said kindergarten teacher Becky Martin. “They can give a castle or a rocket ship.”

The kindergartner celebrating a birthday wears a crown for the day. The teachers bind all the birthday cards together into a special book that the student decorates with a cover and then takes home as a keepsake.

The change in how birthday parties are celebrated at Stedman Elementary stemmed in part from changing government standards calling for healthier snacks at school, but also from school staff who wanted a healthier way to celebrate their students on their special days. Toland, who was a teacher at Stedman when the birthday policy changed, said staff talked about the problem. If they considered a classroom of 20 students, that could mean celebrating 20 different birthdays each year, and 20 different days in which students ate sugary treats at school to celebrate those birthdays.

“As parents, we realized that having an extra treat at school wasn’t necessary,” Toland said.

As teachers, they realized that 20 different days of cupcakes in the classroom was causing a disruption to many school days. Furthermore, allowing families to bring sugary treats to the classroom put parents in a difficult position, Toland said. Some parents couldn’t afford to bring in treats for the whole class.

“It kind of differentiates between those who have and have not, and those who can and cannot,” Toland said. The new practice of celebrating students with school-supplied books and not parent-supplied treats removed that issue for families who couldn’t afford to bring in cupcakes and ensured every student was celebrated in the exact same way. The birthday books given to Stedman students don’t cost the school, or the parents, anything. The books are purchased using the proceeds collected from the annual school book fair.

Toland said switching to the birthday book celebration wasn’t an easy change for everyone to make, but the staff stuck with it and over time parents stopped bringing in sugary treats for their children’s birthdays. Healthy snacks, like fruits and vegetables, are still allowed if parents choose to bring them for the class. Toland said parents rarely choose to do that. Toland helps ensure that all parents and staff know the birthday policy by starting each school year with a school bulletin that explains how birthdays are celebrated at Stedman Elementary.

“It’s been a good way to teach kids that we eat healthy snacks,” she said.

​A new law takes effect this week in Alaska requiring schools to provide almost one hour of daily physical activity for all students in grades kindergarten through 8.

Children benefit from physical activity, both in their overall health and their academic performance. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, meeting the daily recommendation of physical activity is linked to an increase in concentration and focus, improved classroom attendance and behavior, better academic performance, prevention of obesity, and improved overall health.

In 2016, the Alaska State Legislature passed and the Governor signed SB 200, with the short title “Mandatory Physical Activity in Schools.” The law went into effect October 16, 2016.

The new law states the following: “a school district shall establish guidelines for schools in the district to provide opportunities during each full school day for students in grades kindergarten through eight, for a minimum of 90 percent of the daily amount of physical activity recommended for children and adolescents in the physical activity guidelines by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention…”. Full text of the law can be found at www.akleg.gov.

The CDC recommends 60 minutes of physical activity every day for children and adolescents (the same recommendation in Play Every Day messages). The new Alaska law requires 90 percent of that amount — or 54 minutes of physical activity — during each school day for grades K-8. The 54 minutes may include a combination of physical education classes, recess, and in-classroom physical activity. Since daily physical education is an important component of the educational curriculum, many schools will meet part of the requirement by offering PE. However, each district may decide their own combination of activities to meet the daily 54-minute requirement.

The Superintendent of the North Slope Borough School District, based in Barrow, asked each schools’ staff how they were going to meet this new requirement, said Brian Freeman, a member of the district’s wellness team. The school district’s leaders stressed that the law doesn’t allow inclusion of after-school activities toward the 54 daily minutes of physical activity, Freeman said.

Schools in this district came up with different strategies to reach the activity goal during school hours. Nunamiut School in Anaktuvuk Pass reports using dancing during its school-wide morning opening time to reach its goal. Nuiqsut Trapper School has recess and physical education classes every day for their students. Ipalook Elementary School in Barrow is incorporating Brain Gym exercises into its teachers’ daily lesson plans.

The Alaska School Health program, within the Division of Public Health, has created a webpage providing resources and options to assist school districts in their planning efforts to meet the requirements of SB 200. Visit http://dhss.alaska.gov/dph/Chronic/Pages/SchoolHealth/physicalactivity.aspx for guidance, including sample scheduling options, recommended classroom-based physical activity resources, and model language to ensure school district wellness policies (also known as the Student Nutrition and Physical Activity policies) meet the new requirements of this law.

​When you drink a soda, the large amount of sugar hiding inside can start doing its damage right away in the mouth.

Soda, sports drinks, powdered mixes and other sugary drinks can lead to cavities in teeth. They can cause unhealthy weight gain in the body and damage to the heart. They can lead to blood vessels carrying too much sugar – a condition known as type-2 diabetes.

The Alaska Department of Health and Social Services (DHSS) started its Play Every Day sugary drink campaign with a main focus on the connection between sugary drinks and unhealthy weight gain. This fall, department program directors working on Play Every Day and obesity prevention are teaming up with department directors focused on dental health to strive for a similar goal: reduce sugary drink consumption among Alaska families to improve the health of their entire bodies – from their mouths to their waistlines to the health of their hearts and blood vessels.

“The new Healthy Drinks for Healthy Kids project provides a great opportunity for public health and dental professionals to team up to cut sugary drink consumption,” said Karol Fink, manager of the department’s Obesity Prevention and Control Program.

“The campaign will engage dentists and dental hygienists to educate young Alaska children and their parents during routine dental exams about the large amount of sugar hiding in drinks, why too much sugar is harmful to the health of teeth and general health of the child, and why water and plain white milk are the healthiest drink options,” said Dr. Brad Whistler, manager of the department’s Oral Health Program. “These Alaska families likely won’t forget these important health messages from their dental appointments as Play Every Day will be reinforcing this information in TV Public Service Announcements running in communities across Alaska and in posters in health clinics and in schools.”

This two-year pilot project is being funded by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to improve dental health and prevent obesity and other chronic diseases in Alaska. Across the state, about 1 out of 3 children is overweight or obese. About 2 out of 3 adults are overweight or obese. During the 2010-11 school year, dentists under contract with the Alaska Oral Health Program examined the teeth of young children in Alaska and found 41% of kindergartners had a filling or an untreated cavity on at least one tooth at the time of the screening. Rates of past or present cavities were even higher in third-graders, with 62% of students having past or present decay on at least one tooth at the time of the screening.

Between now and August 2018, DHSS health program directors will partner with dental providers to reduce sugary drink consumption among their patients, especially families with young children; expand the Play Every Day campaign’s sugary drink prevention efforts; and provide dental and public health clinics with patient educational materials.

Reducing sugary drink consumption in Alaska is essential, given that many Alaskans drink too many sugary beverages, and they’re drinking them every single day. Just one sugary drink — such as one bottle of soda with 16 teaspoons of added sugar — has more added sugar than people should have in one day based on the new sugar limits in the U.S. Dietary Guidelines for Americans.

• 42% of Alaska adults and Alaska high school students drink one of more sodas or sugary drinks every day (2013 BRFSS, 2015 YRBS) • One out of 5 Alaska parents of elementary-age children serves their children a sugary drink every day, and two out of three parents serve their kids sugary drinks one or more times each week. (2014 Play Every Day Statewide Telephone Survey)

During the next two years, the Healthy Drinks for Healthy Kids project will offer training to dental clinics and providers to ask their patients about sugary drinks, advise patients to reduce consumption, and assist these patients in coming up with a plan to reduce the sugary drinks in their diets and replace them with water. The project also will build on the recognizable Play Every Day campaign, creating specific educational messages to support the work of dental providers. Play Every Day’s current educational messages focused on reducing sugary drink consumption and promoting water are found online and will be updated when new materials become available.

We all want our kids to exercise, and most of us could add more activity to our days, too. Making physical activity a family affair is a great way to achieve both those goals at once.

Creating a Family Activity Chart is an easy way to plan activities, motivate the family to get active, and track your family’s progress toward 60 minutes of active play every day.

Erin Kirkland, founder of the website AKonthego.com, says the best way to get started is to keep it simple. There are some free activity charts you can download online, or create your own as a family craft project (see example 1, example 2, or example 3).

Then, identify time slots for activities, such as taking a walk, playing sports or doing active chores. Choose times of the day or week when everyone is most likely to stick to the schedule. Then work together as a family to set an easy, reachable goal.

“If you go too big to start, it becomes impossible to meet your goal, and that makes it less fun,” Kirkland said. “Set a simple goal for your family to start with, like after dinner every day, we are all going to go for a walk for 15 or 20 minutes.”

But Kirkland emphasizes that not all activity needs to be pre-planned. Spontaneous play time counts as activity as well.

“Grab a soccer ball, grab a football, or just take a little walk together,” Kirkland said. “Even something as simple as playing tag. Kids don’t play a lot like they used to and I think family play time together is very important in building and maintaining those relationships. As adults, we lose some of that sense of play and I think it is important to show your kids you can still play and have fun, and it encourages them to do it as well.”

Once your family is in the habit of being active together, you can plan longer or more intensive activities for a few days a week. None of your family activities need to be costly, either. You can choose to walk or ride bikes to school or the bus stop; use local, low-cost, or free places like public parks, baseball fields, and basketball courts; attend family nights or other physical activity events at your child’s school or local community centers; and bring along balls, kites, jump ropes, or other items that can be used for active play whenever you leave the house.

“Stop and look at what you’ve got right around you,” she said. “Don’t feel like you have to make a big monetary investment, because the important thing is to spend time together and be active and the rewards will pay off big-time.”

“I would encourage families to find a charitable organization that needs yard work and make a regular weekly or monthly commitment of time,” she said. “Find out if a senior citizen neighbor needs house cleaning or snow removal, or you could volunteer to walk dogs at the animal shelter. The kids will be proud of their contributions at the same time that they will be active and it sets the stage for more than one lifelong healthy habit!”

Have you ever seen hundreds of kids warming up alongside Olympic athletes, and then taking off in one mad dash through Anchorage’s trails?

Get ready for the Anchorage Cross Country Running Jamborees that are happening all over this city in September.

The annual elementary school running event started almost 30 years ago by Mike Allan, a physical education teacher at Baxter Elementary in the Anchorage School District (ASD). The event has expanded over the years throughout the city. Today, there are three, free running Jamborees in north Anchorage, south Anchorage, and Eagle River. Many schools help their students get ready for the fun runs by organizing after-school running clubs. These clubs help kids build endurance and confidence by running around the schools and playing physical activity games.

"The Jamborees are an excellent opportunity for children to be introduced to organized running in a healthy environment that does not emphasize winning," said Harlow Robinson, executive director of Healthy Futures. "The last child to finish is celebrated the same as the first."

Here are the dates, times and locations for the upcoming Anchorage Cross Country Running Jamborees:

• South Anchorage Jamboree — Saturday, Sept. 17, starting at 10 a.m., with a walk-through of the race course beginning 30 minutes prior to the race start. The Jamboree will be held at the trails near Service High School.

• Beach Lake (Eagle River) Jamboree — Thursday, Sept. 22, starting at 5:30 p.m., with a walk-through of the race course beginning 30 minutes prior to the race start. The Jamboree will be held at the Chugiak High School soccer fields and trails.

• North Anchorage Jamboree — Tuesday, Sept. 27, starting at 5:30 p.m., with a walk-through of the race course beginning 30 minutes prior to the race start. The Jamboree will be held at the trails near Bartlett High School.

Parents are encouraged to pre-register their children for the Jamborees at their schools. All children must have a signed waiver before participating in the event. Ask your child’s physical education teacher for more information about the Jamboree in your area.

The 2016 Fall Healthy Futures Challenge is about to begin in almost half of Alaska’s elementary schools. Just five years ago, in 2011, only 34 schools in 4 school districts took part in the twice-annual effort to encourage Alaska’s kids to get out and play, every day. Today, 197 schools in 34 school districts are registered to take part. That’s great news for the future health and well-being of our youngest Alaskans.

The Healthy Futures Challenge is a three-month challenge that takes place each spring and fall for students in kindergarten through sixth grade. Students keep a log of their daily physical activity with the goal of being active at least 60 minutes a day for 15 days each month. This helps Alaska children get closer to the national recommendation of 60 minutes of physical activity every day for the best health.

Participation is free, and children win fun prizes throughout the challenge for being active. As a bonus, the prizes are typically things that children can use to be even more active.

Participating schools that achieve at least 20 percent student participation in the Healthy Futures Challenge will be eligible to receive a $200 grant. Schools can use this money to purchase educational materials or equipment that supports student physical activity — a bonus for educators facing shrinking budgets.

Natasha Bergt’s school received a $200 grant last year, which helped her purchase equipment her students can use at recess.

“Recess is a great time for kids that don’t have parents driving them to hockey or ballet or other after-school activities to get their 60 minutes a week in,” said Bergt, a PE teacher at Huffman Elementary School in Anchorage. “We’ve been a huge Healthy Futures school right from the start. We have kind of made it part of our school language that we should all be active at least 60 minutes a day. It’s a conversation that keeps reinforcing that you need an hour of exercise a day.”

Healthy Futures organizers say they hope even more schools sign up for the challenge this time.

"We're thrilled that 196 schools have already signed up for the fall Healthy Futures Challenge, and we're excited to bring more schools on with the goal of 200 statewide participating,” said Alyse Loran, Healthy Futures Challenge Coordinator. “The Challenge is a fun, free opportunity for schools and communities to encourage their youth to develop the habit of daily physical activity."

Is your school signed up for the Fall Healthy Futures Challenge? It’s not too late to sign up online.

​School’s about to start, so take a look on the walls at your child’s school to see if you can spot Play Every Day’s newest messages about the importance of physical activity and the health risks of sugary drinks.

For the past few years, Play Every Day has been sending its posters to hundreds of schools across Alaska. Many of them are stilling hanging up – showing kids and parents how much sugar is hiding in sugary drinks (a 20-ounce bottle of soda can have the same amount of sugar as 16 chocolate mini doughnuts.)

This year’s posters touch on two pieces of news: • First, Play Every Day and its partner, the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium, filmed new public service announcements (PSAs) this summer featuring Alaska parents and adults in Bethel and Unalakleet who help children in their communities be physically active.• And second, the U.S. Dietary Guidelines for Americans issued its new recommended limit for the amount of added sugar you eat and drink every day.

Play Every Day took this news from the Dietary Guidelines and photographs from filming families this summer and turned them into a new poster series for schools and health clinics across Alaska.

Let’s start with the new PSAs and posters that focus on physical activity. One PSA includes Nick Iligutchiak Hanson, a Unalakleet man who participated in the American Ninja Warrior TV competition this summer. Nick doesn’t just focus on his own physical activity. He spends a lot of time motivating children to be active through his free running club, his obstacle course on the beach, and his involvement in playing neighborhood games. The second PSA features the Iverson family from Bethel who gets children moving through playing, coaching sports, and heading to fish camp. Schools are receiving several new posters that feature Nick Hanson, the Iverson family, and children who get out and play in Unalakleet and Bethel.

Play Every Day has two new posters and two-sided rack cards focused on drinking water instead of sugary drinks. In January, the U.S. Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommended that people limit the amount of added sugar they eat and drink every day to less than 10 percent of their total daily calories. As an example, an adult eating an average of 2,000 calories a day should limit their consumption of added sugar to 12 ½ teaspoons each day. Play Every Day took that recommendation and communicated it using sugary drinks. One bottle of soda (with 16 teaspoons of added sugar) and one tall glass of a powdered drink mix (with 11 teaspoons of added sugar) have more sugar than a child should consume in one day. That bottle of soda has more added sugar than anyone should eat or drink in one day. The text across the top of the new posters drives home the main message: Even one sugary drink each day is too much.

Do you want to help us share these messages? We have more posters and rack cards and can mail them across Alaska. Please email playeveryday@alaska.gov or call 907-269-3433 to have posters sent to you.

​Earlier this year, Alaska Governor Bill Walker signed a bill designating every August 10 as Alaska Wild Salmon Day.

The annual celebration of all-things-salmon came about from a bill sponsored by Alaska State Rep. Bryce Edgmon (D-Dillingham). He said he hopes this day will promote healthy and delicious Alaska wild salmon, and recognize the importance of salmon subsistence fishing, recreational fishing and commercial fishing.

At Play Every Day, we’re excited to celebrate salmon’s place on Alaska dinner plates (and breakfast, lunch, and snack plates as well). Wild Alaska salmon is an excellent source of lean protein, and it boasts high concentrations of heart-healthy Omega 3 fatty acids. People who eat one to two servings of salmon or other fish each week reduce their risk of dying from heart disease by 36 percent.

Health leaders in Alaska recommend that everyone eat fish at least twice a week for the best health. Alaska wild salmon is low in an environmental contaminant called mercury, so state health leaders recommend unrestricted consumption of all species of wild salmon, as well as other types of fish caught in Alaska waters.

Description:• Prepare risotto according to package directions adding mushrooms, but cooking just three-quarters of total time, about 15 to 18 minutes.• While risotto is cooking, bring chicken broth to a simmer in a large (12-inch) nonstick pan or stockpot. • If salmon is frozen, rinse off any ice glaze under cold water. • Turn off heat and gently add seafood to the chicken broth, skin side down. • Return heat to a simmer. Once simmering, cover pan and cook 4 to 5 minutes for frozen salmon or 2 minutes for fresh/thawed fish. • Turn off heat and let seafood rest in liquid for 5 minutes, until seafood is opaque throughout. • Remove salmon from broth, season with pepper and cool slightly.• Add asparagus/peas and Parmesan to partially cooked risotto; finish cooking risotto.• Break salmon into large chunks (removing skin, if any) and gently fold salmon and basil into risotto.

Families across Alaska have stories to share about how they help their own children — and their community’s children — be physically active. This summer, Play Every Day and its partner, the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium, visited two communities to help tell those stories.

We’ve talked about our visit with Nick Hanson, the American Ninja Warrior contestant in Unalakleet who coaches and mentors children of all ages. In June, we also visited Bethel and met the Iverson family. Watch our new TV public service announcements featuring Nick Hanson and the Iversons helping their communities be physically active.

Carolyn and Shane Iverson are raising three children in Bethel, a community along the Kuskokwim River. Carolyn is Yup’ik, grew up in Akiak until age 5, and has lived in Bethel for years. That’s where she met her husband, Shane. They have two boys and a girl — all under the age of 8. Carolyn is a social worker with the Lower Kuskokwim School District and Shane is the general manager for KYUK.

The Iversons are busy, but they work hard to make sure their whole family is active every day. They limit TV time and don’t have video games. They make physical activity a daily priority by finding ways to weave activity into their family’s day.

“Sometimes people think physical activity needs to be separate from their daily lives,” Carolyn said. “When you can incorporate it into your daily lifestyle, that’s when it will be easiest to maintain.”

Activity is a part of the kids’ school day. The boys do Native dance twice a week at the Yup’ik Immersion School. After school, the Iverson children play basketball, wrestle, do judo or play soccer — depending on the season. When school’s out for the summer, they pick berries or take trips to the sand pits to run around and play. They often take a boat to their fish camp so they can fish together on the river.

The Iverson family has found a way to be active and help the community be active at the same time. In the summer, Shane coaches soccer while his children play the game. During the school year, Carolyn coaches girls basketball and Shane assists. Carolyn calls physical activity a “family affair.”

“If my kids are in wrestling, then our whole family goes to wrestling,” she said. “In basketball, when we coach, our whole family goes to basketball and they’re in the gym. So any time we have somebody doing something, our whole family goes. Shane will play Ultimate Frisbee, and our kids will be playing off on the sidelines.”

Carolyn says she gives her time to help young kids because she wants them to think about the importance of being physically active. She wants to inspire them to maintain that level of activity throughout adulthood. She also wants to help them feel better about who they are, and start thinking about their goals for the future.

“We are trying to raise our kids to choose to be active and engage in things that make them feel good,” Carolyn said.

She encourages parents to join their kids in play. If your kids are playing outside, play with them. If your children are playing soccer, go with them to the soccer field. That’s what makes it more fun, she said.

This is how the Iversons are helping children in their community be physically active. What can you do in yours?

Nick Iligutchiak Hanson’s leap of 37 feet, 5 inches last week pushed him into the record books and added another gold medal to his collection from the Arctic Winter Games and the World Eskimo-Indian Olympics. The previous world record for the event was 36 feet, 7 inches. Yep, Nick set that record, too.

You might say his world-record leap vaults him into top form as he heads to the American Ninja finals in Las Vegas , where he will vie for the $1 million Ninja Warrior prize. Nick — featured this month in a Play Every Day PSA to promote the importance of helping children be physically active every day — made it to the Los Angeles finals by nailing the obstacle course in the season premiere in Los Angeles that aired June 1. Over 6 million viewers watched the feat, according to Hollywood Reporter, making the premiere the most-watched network program of the night.

Nick then made it through the LA finals in the July 11 episode, qualifying him to compete in the Vegas finals later this summer.The show airs Mondays at 7 p.m.

What looks like a seamless run of success took years to develop. Nick competed in the Native Youth Olympics as a teenager and believes his subsistence lifestyle has helped him develop resilience and strength as an athlete. Last season, his first on American Ninja, he missed the regional finals by a fraction of a second.

Missing the cut prompted him to refocus and train harder, one of the key messages he wants to share and embody for the kids of his village, Unalakleet. They were the ones who convinced him to audition for American Ninja in the first place. They’re the ones who flock to his no-cost running club and join in games of tag and hide-and-seek. And they’re the ones Nick wants to inspire to dream big, work hard, and care about their community.

The 28-year-old teaching assistant coaches youth in basketball, volleyball and Native Olympic events, and mentors other Alaska athletes who want a shot at American Ninja. As a member of Arctic Winter Games Team Alaska, Nick proves that the Arctic games might be the training ground for the next Ninja Warrior.

Look for Nick on his You Tube channel, The Eskimo Ninja, and on TV in our PSA and American Ninja Warrior.

​The state’s 6th annual Ted Stevens Day is coming up on July 23, 2016, and there are lots of fun activities planned around the state to help Alaskans get out and play. One of these family-friendly events in Anchorage is focusing on including children and adults who experience disabilities in playground fun.

The event organizers are encouraging families to bring their children — and their teddy bears — to the park between noon and 4 p.m. to enjoy a picnic, music, a parade and playtime.

“The activities are geared toward including all kids and families in the fun,” said Beth Nordlund, executive director of the Anchorage Park Foundation, one of the partners in the Teddy Bear Picnic event. “We hope kids enjoy a bit of pretend creative time, play on the playground, and have fun with the other kids. We hope the adults take advantage of this great community gathering for family fun while they learn about the importance of inclusive play. No child should have to sit on the side of a park — inclusive play is for all of us!”

Matias Saari, event support coordinator for Healthy Futures, says the organization is excited to be involved in the Ted Stevens Day event.

“The activities will be both fun and healthy, and we anticipate the event as a whole will build awareness of the Inclusive Play Movement and importance of wholesome outdoor opportunities for all kids,” he said.

“Our goal was to show parents that preparing healthy meals with fruits, vegetables and legumes is easy,” said Andrea Bersamin, an associate professor at UAF who works with the Center for Alaska Native Health Research and the Children’s Healthy Living Program. This program is a funded through the U.S. Department of Agriculture to improve child health in Alaska, Hawaii, Guam, American Samoa, Palau, Micronesia, and the Northern Mariana and Marshall islands.

Each short video features a child helping to prepare and cook foods that are readily available in most parts of Alaska, like beans, kale, oatmeal, and vegetable fried rice. You can watch the videos at http://uaf.edu/ces/districts/matsu/hhfd/chl/.

“The idea is that kids can get involved in cooking even at a young age, and it makes them more likely to want to taste the food if they help make it,” said Bersamin. “The overnight oats video shows just the child making the whole thing, no adults. These recipes are easy and fun to make.”

The videos were filmed in the UAF Cooperative Extension kitchen in Fairbanks and feature Alaska families. Bersamin said the group has plans to make additional cooking demonstration videos using traditional Alaska Native and subsistence foods.

“(Sports and energy) drinks are short-burst stimulants, and can have a lot of sugar, and they are not the right type of thing to be putting into your body routinely,” said Thomas, the head coach for the University of Alaska Anchorage Seawolves men’s hockey team. “We discourage our players from drinking them and we educate them on the proper, healthier ways to hydrate and create the needed focus and energy. We understand that there isn’t a very good correlation to performance from using sports or energy drinks.”

Thomas says he encourages his players to consume healthy meals when training or preparing for a game, and to choose drinks like water or milk.

“We know that water is always a good choice,” he said.

Thomas said his hockey players, like many college students, don’t always make the best food and drink choices, but part of their pre-season training is meeting with a sports nutritionist.

“We give the kids an opportunity to get good information on how to fuel your body the proper way,” he said. “These guys are grown men who can make their own decisions, but they are interested in what they should consume to make their bodies work best, and they understand there are other things you can do for your body that are better than sports drinks.”

Rikki Keen is a sports nutritionist who has worked with the UAA Men’s Hockey team many times. She discourages sports and energy drinks for athletes of all ages, but especially for children under 18.

“Kids are growing rapidly, and of all the times of their lives, this is not the time to be consuming those poor-nutrient-based drinks,” she said.

Keen worries about the way these beverages are marketed, to make it seem like they are what your body requires during or after exercising. The drinks come in pretty colors and flavors, she said. Their labels often say they contain electrolytes, like sodium or potassium, that your body loses when you sweat during physical activity. But Keen says you can get more sodium and potassium in a cup of milk than from a sports drink.

“Calories are not created equal,” Keen said. “You need to ask yourself: Is it necessary to have a sports drink when you can get the same things from a banana and water?”

The Healthy Futures Kids Mile is part of the Anchorage Mayor's Marathon & Half Marathon presented by ConocoPhillips and takes place while adults are registering for their marathon bibs. The route begins in front of the Alaska Airlines Center and winds around the University of Alaska Anchorage campus. The event includes refreshments and prizes. Scott Janssen, the “Mushin’ Mortician,” will lead the kids out behind a team of huskies. Local “Healthy Heroes” will run with the kids and hand out Healthy Futures medals.The run is free, but kids must be registered in advance to receive a bib and prizes.

The event organizers call the Kids' 2K (about 1.2 miles) a no-pressure, fun run on the Delaney Parkstrip between E and I Streets (one block south of the Dena'ina Civic and Convention Center). The start area is on 9th Avenue at its intersection with G Street. The finish is on the Park Strip grass (near F Street). The pre-race warm-up will be led by Anchorage's Healthy Hero athletes, who will also guide the runners around the course.The run is free and all registered participants will receive a hat and a finisher’s medal.

Come take part in an event focused on two goals: serving as a memorial for Avery Lindholm, a 2-year-old Alaska child who died from brain cancer, and raising funds for Alaska families with children who have cancer. Entry fees will be donated to the family of an Eagle River child who recently died from cancer. The course includes an 800-meter swim in Matanuska Lake (a wetsuit is strongly recommended), 12 miles of off-road biking, and a 4-mile trail run. Team or individual registration includes a T-shirt, a finisher’s medal, entry into a raffle for prizes, and more.

​The sun looks bright at 5 a.m. in Unalakleet in May, but it provides little warmth against the chill on this clear morning. Nick Iligutchiak Hanson heats up a different way – by navigating an obstacle course that tests his agility, speed, power and endurance as he leaps and reaches over and up stumps, logs and walls.

On this day in May, he was doing the course for a Play Every Day PSA to promote the importance of daily physical activity. Play Every Day has partnered with the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium to show how people in communities across Alaska are helping families get more active for the best health.

Most days, Hanson hits his homemade course on Unalakleet's beach to prepare for American Ninja Warrior, an obstacle course competition show that airs on NBC. Last year he almost made it to the city finals. This year, he was the first to successfully complete the course in the first round.

After nailing the warped wall, hitting the buzzer, and howling triumphantly, Hanson told the show’s sideline interviewer, “I’m just so glad I have had so much support from my family and my community.”

The feeling goes both ways. The kids he coaches prodded him to try out for Ninja Warrior in the first place, he said, and they continue to play with the 28-year-old Ninja all year.

Hanson coaches basketball, volleyball and Native Youth Olympic games during the school year, and leads a running club all summer. He mentors other Alaska athletes vying for a spot on Ninja Warrior as well.

For Hanson, staying active means staying connected with his body, his community and his culture. As a teacher’s aide, coach, mentor and motivational speaker, Hanson wants to help kids do their best and guide them toward healthy option, he said. He wants to be someone they can turn to when they need a hand or need someone to listen.

And if some of these kids start a game of hide-and-seek using the whole village as a playground, Hanson is definitely playing. Though now in the national spotlight as the American Ninja Warrior from the small Alaska community, Hanson has already made a name for himself as an athlete, coach and community leader. In March, he won gold in the Open Men’s Two-Foot High Kick during the Arctic Winter Games in Nuuk, Greenland, and he has won over 30 medals in the World Eskimo Indian Olympics and Arctic Winter Games since 2013.

In the past few years, he has received several notable recognition awards, including the 2015 Native Youth Olympics Healthy Coach award and the 2015 Bering Straits Native Corporation Young Providers award. Just month ago, he received a 2016 Alaska First Lady’s Volunteer of the Year Award for his dedication to youth and his community (view his video about receiving the award in Juneau here).

Now, as Alaska’s Ninja Warrior, Hanson heads to the show’s regional finals and is that much closer to the show’s Las Vegas finale and $1 million Ninja Warrior prize. That hardly seems to matter on this clear spring night in May.

As sunlight clings to the horizon, Hanson keeps moving from corner to alley, beach to river bank, in a hide-and-seek game that plays on into the evening sun.

Find out more about the obstacle course Hanson and friends built and the work he does on his You Tube channel, The Eskimo Ninja, and look for him and the community of Unalakleet again in an upcoming Play Every Day PSA that will air statewide in August,

​It used to be that the start of spring marked the end of the Healthy Futures Challenge for the year.

Not anymore.

For years, Healthy Futures has offered two, free physical activity challenges during the school year — one in the fall and one in the spring. In June, the Healthy Futures program is starting its first Summer Challenge with a few programs across the state ready to support Alaska kids being active throughout the summer.

“Our program is about building habits, and the summer has always been a large gap between our spring challenge and our fall challenge,” said Harlow Robinson, executive director of Healthy Futures and the Alaska Sports Hall of Fame. The summer challenge provides support for daily physical activity when many children need it, he said.

Healthy Futures is partnering with Camp Fire Alaska, the Alaska Afterschool Network, and RurAL CAP to run the summer physical activity challenge in four rural communities that participate in Camp Fire’s Rural Camp program and through Camp Fire’s school-based summer camp program in Anchorage.

“Camp Fire Alaska strives to teach and encourage youth to make healthy life choices. Partnering with Healthy Futures seemed like a natural fit,” said Joanne Phillips-Nutter, director of development and marketing for Camp Fire Alaska. “The partnership provides Camp Fire with a tried-and-tested system to further encourage, incentivize, and promote the practice of lifelong fitness. We are excited to partner with Healthy Futures, and provide the opportunity to extend their programming to reach youth year-round!”

The school-year Healthy Futures Challenge and the Summer Challenge run in slightly different ways. To successfully complete the school-year challenge, children in grades K-6 fill out a physical activity log for an entire month. To complete the Summer Challenge, children need to fill out an activity log for a two-week period of time. During those two weeks, participating children need to be active for 60 minutes a day for at least 10 days, Robinson said.

This two-week Summer Challenge period matches the two-week length of the summer camps that Camp Fire runs in rural communities across the state. This summer, the Healthy Futures Challenge will be offered in Kaltag, Nulato, Ruby and Koyokuk.

There will be four, two-week Summer Challenge periods in June and July, Robinson said. Children who complete the Summer Challenge will receive a prize. If children complete three of the four Summer Challenge periods, they will be eligible for a $300 grand prize gift card to buy physical activity equipment.

Robinson calls this Summer Challenge a pilot, and Healthy Futures will be seeing how it works in rural and urban communities. Some of these communities have participated in the school-based challenge that is run every fall and spring in almost 200 schools. Others haven’t participated before.

“It’s an opportunity to get in the door in those communities,” Robinson said. “Hopefully they will continue on (with the challenge) in the fall.”

A circus is coming to Barrow next week, and the community’s children will be the performers.Every summer in Barrow – the northernmost community in Alaska – circus artists fly in to provide a two-week camp for almost 100 Barrow children. Kids from 5 and up can attend every day at no cost to them.

The camp has been running for the past eight summers in Barrow and for five years in the surrounding villages, said Sandy Solenberger, who has helped organize the yearly North Slope circus camps. Children can attend circus camp for free because it is fully funded by a federal diabetes grant and Ilisagvik College, and it receives in-kind support from the City of Barrow and the North Slope Borough School District, Solenberger said.

This year’s Barrow camp will run May 23 through June 3. During that time, the campers will get to learn unique physical activities – including walking on stilts and a tightwire, balancing on a board atop a rolling cylinder, hanging on a trapeze, and tumbling. These circus skills help Barrow children get closer to 60 minutes of physical activity each day – the national recommendation for good health.

“What we are trying to do is help kids develop the habit of physical activity,” Solenberger said. “We are looking for unusual activities that make joyful memories.”

Some of these activities seem novel, but they have a history in Alaska Native culture, Solenberger said. For some regions of Alaska, juggling is an Alaska Native skill that was done with rocks instead of balls. The Barrow circus camp staff are hoping to leave behind more juggling balls in North Slope villages to promote this physical activity after the camp concludes, Solenberger said.

The camp promotes health beyond increased activity. Solenberger said the only drink available to the kids during camp is water. At the beginning of camp, kids decorate their own water bottles so they can drink water throughout the day. Camp coordinators also talk to kids about the health concerns linked with sugary drinks.

If you’re in Barrow on June 3, be sure to stop by for the grand finale of Circus Camp. The children will put on an evening circus show for the whole community. Families will be entertained, and the children get to show off their new physical activity skills.

Alaska kids tried 20 new salad recipes during the past year, and their top choices for salads, dressings, and seasonings were printed in the new Alaska School Salad Book, which is available online for free.

Alaska kids from the Alaska Gateway School District in Tok and the Boys and Girls Home of Alaska in Fairbanks taste-tested pizza salad, crispy ranch chickpeas, Mediterranean couscous, and more and then graded them with words, and scores.

"It is epic and good," said one child about one of the salads. “Awesome,” said another.

When asked to rate a salad on a scale of 1-6, with 6 being the best, one student’s score went through the roof: 999,999.

It’s hard to question the deliciousness of a salad when one child says, “It’s the best thing in the world.”

The Alaska School Salad Book was published in partnership by the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services (DHSS); the Department of Education and Early Development; the Department of Natural Resources, Division of Agriculture; the University of Fairbanks Cooperative Extension Service; the Alaska Gateway School District; and the Boys and Girls Home of Alaska The recipes come in bulk sizes so that schools can make them for the growing number of salad bars available in Alaska schools. But don’t worry if you’re not up for making a salad that feeds 100 people. The health department has also printed all of the salad recipes in quantities that feed a much smaller family of four. All of the recipes are saved as PDF files and can be printed and cut-out for your personal recipe files.

The salad recipes provide fun news ways to help make fruits and vegetables a part of children’s daily diets because they are essential for optimal child growth, weight management and chronic disease prevention, said Diane Peck, a registered dietitian with DHSS. Unfortunately, Alaska children are not eating enough fruits and veggies. Only 20% of Alaska high school students eat the minimum recommended amount of five servings of fruits and vegetables per day, according to Alaska’s recent Youth Risk Behavior Survey.

The salad book, and the smaller-size family recipe cards, show off unique ways to mix fruits and vegetables in salads. Toss together wheat berries, green peppers, black olives, some spices and a little mozzarella cheese and diced pepperoni and you have pizza salad. It’s got all the flavors of pizza, but is served in a bowl and not on a crust. Fruits and vegetables are front and center in the Carrot and Mandarin Orange Salad. Want a surprise of color? Prepare pink potato salad with red potatoes – skin still on – and whole beets.

“It was exciting to see the kids trying new foods, especially foods that come from Alaska,” Peck said. “The students made great suggestions to improve some of the original recipes. They were so eager to try new foods when they were involved in the process.”

​When the snow melts and warmer weather arrives, many of Alaska’s kids are anxious to get outside on their bikes. And many of Alaska’s physical education teachers are anxious to give those kids a refresher course in bike safety.

But some kids can’t get their bikes to school easily, some don’t own a helmet, and the bikes they bring often have mechanical issues that delay learning and safety skills practice while teachers help students get their bikes in working order.

Health and physical education teachers can reserve the trailer through an online request system and have it delivered directly to their school. White Spruce Trailers in Anchorage outfitted the 20-foot trailer with the hooks and storage for the bike fleet and helmets, and a supply cabinet filled with cones and signs for setting up a bike skills course along with the tools needed for simple maintenance and upkeep of the bikes.

The bikes are Bike Friday’s OSATA bikes and are capable of adjusting to fit riders from 4’0” to 6’2” and up to 200 pounds. They are made in Eugene, Ore. of Made in America steel — a rarity for children’s bikes.

“We are excited to work with our community partners to enhance our current programs by finding innovative ways to engage our students,” said Melanie Sutton, the Health and Physical Education Coordinator for the Anchorage School District. “This program allows us to increase our ability to provide an equal playing field for students to learn about the benefits gained from being physically active as well as the skills and knowledge to incorporate safe, satisfying physical activity into their lives.”

That’s the term a number of Alaska teachers are using when they add in a short burst of physical activity in the middle of classroom learning. Physical activity has benefits that go beyond helping children and teens maintain a healthy weight. Recent national studies show that physical activity can help our children think and learn better.

Since children and teens spend more than half of their waking hours in the classroom, school is a prime location to increase physical activity among children. Some Alaska teachers are seeing the direct benefits of short activity breaks in their classrooms, and they say it is a great way to help youth reach the goal of 60 minutes of physical activity every day.

“They say that with any muscle you need to work it, but also give it some rest, so we take little brain breaks throughout the day,” said Marisa Glieco, a teacher at Lake Otis Elementary School in Anchorage. “When the kids have been sitting for 20 minutes or so, listening, taking notes, or doing an activity, a brain break gives them a little chance to move their bodies and give their minds a rest. I am always looking for ways we can get them up and active, and re-engage their brains.”

Sarah Tunley, a health specialist with the Anchorage School District, said she uses the same approach in the health and life skills classes she teaches to students in kindergarten through 6th grade.

“In elementary school, a lot of the time we are still kind of focused on all of our content, and kids are sitting and being sedentary a lot throughout the day,” Tunley said. “I want to make sure the kids are getting physical activity throughout the day, and not just at recess or PE time.”

There are numerous sources online for active classroom break ideas, but Glieco and Tunley both said their go-to brain break activity source is www.gonoodle.com.

“Most of the teachers at my school use Go Noodle,” Glieco said. “The site has a wide variety of activities, so there is something for everyone from dancing, to Zumba, to weird YouTube videos the kids like to jump around to.”

Glieco said her principal encourages teachers to have their classes take short extra recess breaks when possible to help kids focus better. When the schedule doesn’t allow a full outdoor break, a 10- or 15-minute activity break in the classroom can be just as helpful.

“When we don’t (take an activity break), you can tell the difference (in their behavior),” Glieco said. “They enjoy that ability to not only connect with each other, but to be active.”

Glieco and Tunley also like the wide variety of activity levels they can choose from when using online resources.

“If you are having a really rambunctious class, there are calming activities and yoga that can help them focus on an activity and help them be mindful,” said Glieco.

Most online classroom activity resources require little or no teacher preparation, special equipment, or resources. Glieco said she particularly likes to show videos that the kids can follow along with for brain breaks because it gives her a chance to rest her brain and get active as well.

​Today, Play Every Day is looking at one of the most confusing drinks sold in the sugary drink aisle of the grocery stores. It’s called a vitamin-enhanced water drink. The confusion around this drink comes with how it’s marketed.

When you look at the front of a vitamin-enhanced water drink, it appears to be a healthy choice. The front label stresses that it’s packed with vitamins. If you turn the bottle around, however, the nutrition facts label tells the truth. A vitamin-enhanced water drink is actually loaded with sugar — about 8 teaspoons of added sugar in a 20-ounce bottle.

This January, the U.S. Dietary Guidelines for Americans issued the first-ever recommended limit for the amount of added sugar we eat and drink every day. The limit states that everyone— old and young — should limit their added sugar to 10 percent or less of total daily calories. A typical adult consuming 2,000 calories a day should limit their sugar intake to 12 ½ teaspoons of added sugar or fewer each day. A moderately active 8-year-old boy should have no more than 10 teaspoons of added sugar each day. Just one vitamin-enhanced water drink gets a child or an adult close to the daily sugar limit, and that doesn’t count all of the other added sugar eaten each day in cereals, snack bars, desserts, even condiments like ketchup and salad dressing.

Play Every Day has been looking at several different types of sweetened drinks to find out how much sugar they contain. Earlier this month, we focused on the powdered mix.While it’s often billed as a breakfast drink with added vitamins, a 16-ounce glass of a powdered mix can start your day with more added sugar than a can of soda.

For the best health, skip sugary drinks like vitamin-enhanced beverages and powdered mixes. Instead, serve your families water or low-fat milk.If you want vitamins, stick with whole foods and all-natural sources, like fruits and vegetables.

A national public health foundation has recognized Anchorage as one of four communities nationwide that reduced its childhood obesity rates. Obesity rates among Anchorage School District elementary and middle school students declined by 2.2% between the 2003–04 and 2010–11 school years, due to coordinated efforts among the school district, the Municipality of Anchorage, and the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services (DHSS).

The report discusses a number of strategies and collaborations that likely contributed to the childhood obesity decline seen in Anchorage between the 2003-04 and 2012-11 school years. Strategies completed through partnership by the Municipality of Anchorage, the Anchorage School District and DHSS had a positive effect on obesity rates.

At the Anchorage School District, the wellness team made the following changes:

increased the number of students participating in the Healthy Futures Challenge — the free, school-based physical activity challenge run by Healthy Futures, an Alaska nonprofit organization; and

adopted a comprehensive School District Wellness Policy that improved the foods available in vending machines, school stores and classrooms.

At the same time, the Municipality of Anchorage’s Task Force on Obesity and Health increased public awareness of the health consequences of childhood obesity; improved childcare licensing requirements around physical activity and nutrition; encouraged a variety of agencies to engage in improving the health of Anchorage residents; and guided development and adoption of the Anchorage Pedestrian and Bike Plans.

“Childhood obesity is a serious health concern in Alaska, and about 1 out of 3 children in this state is overweight or obese,” said Karol Fink, the DHSS Obesity Prevention and Control Program manager. “This report shows that a broad set of policies applied by a large group of partners over a period of time can affect health behaviors and reduce childhood obesity rates.”

While community partners are pleased obesity rates among Anchorage students have not increased since 2011, the collective efforts must continue to further decrease obesity rates. Many children remain at increased risk for weight-related health problems, including type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol.

At a public event at an Anchorage elementary school, Anchorage Mayor Ethan Berkowitz, Anchorage School District Superintendent Ed Graff, and Dr. Jay Butler, Chief Medical Officer and Director of Public Health for the state of Alaska, committed to continue working collaboratively to address childhood obesity in Anchorage.

Spring is on its way, and that means it’s almost time for running race season!

There are two runs coming up in April that are great opportunities for families Spring is on its way, and that means it’s almost time for running race season! There are two runs coming up in April that are great opportunities for families to get active together while raising money for good causes.

The Skinny Raven Superhero Showdown on Saturday, April 9, is a chance to suit up in a superhero costume — anything from Watchmen to the Incredibles to the Avengers — and join dozens of other families on a Heroes vs. Villains 5K or Little Heroes 1.3K course (for kids under 10) along Martin Luther King Jr. Drive.

You can run with a team, decide if you are heroes or villains, and compete for fastest team, biggest team and best-costumed team. Local food trucks, face painting, and a bouncy castle offer more fun at the finish line. Participants receive a T-shirt and a medal.

Register online before April 8 and pay $40 for the 5K and $25 for the 1.3K. Prices are $5 more for race-day registration.

Families also can request financial assistance for youth entry fees by emailing Healthy Futures. Skinny Raven will match all donations up to $1,000 for the Healthy Futures program.

Come out again two weeks later for the Alaska Heart Run on Saturday, April 23. Choose from a timed 5K, untimed 5K run and walk, or a 3K walk — all on the UAA campus.

Register online before April 3 for the best prices: Adults pay $25 for the timed 5K and $20 for the untimed 5K, children ages 4-18 pay $10 and $5, and little ones under 4 are free.

According to the race website, all money raised at the Heart Run will benefit the American Heart Association to fund research and community programs that help to fight cardiovascular diseases and stroke.

Participants who register for the Alaska Heart Run on or before April 22 will be entered to win a free Alaska Airlines ticket. Children in 6th grade and below will receive a Heart Run medal and there will be awards for the top 5 male, female, and Mended Hearts runners (heart attack or stroke survivors), top fundraising teams and top participating schools.

When you talk about sugary drinks, the most common one that comes to mind is soda.

But it’s not just soda anymore.

Today, sugary drinks can mean many different types of beverages that come loaded with added sugar and other sweeteners. Play Every Day is going to explore how much sugar is hiding in these drinks.

Sugary drinks are the source of almost half of all added sugars consumed by Americans. Several years ago, we talked with Alaska parents of children ages 5 to 12 — in Bethel, Barrow, Nome, Fairbanks and Anchorage. We asked these parents what kinds of sugary drinks they had on their cupboard shelves at home.

The most common drink at home for these families wasn’t soda. It was powdered drink mix.

The powdered drink mix is available in all kinds of flavors, including the popular orange flavor. It can be found stacked up in displays at Alaska rural grocery stores. These drinks are stable on the shelves for months at a time and can be stirred in by the scoopful — turning a healthy beverage (water) into a drink that contains almost as much sugar per ounce as soda.

A 16-ounce glass of a powdered drink can have 11 teaspoons of added sugar. If you serve that to your children at breakfast, they will hit the recommended cap for a whole day’s worth of added sugar before even arriving at school. This January, the U.S. Dietary Guidelines for Americans issued the first-ever recommended limit for the amount of added sugar we eat and drink every day. The recommendation states that everyone — old and young — should limit their added sugar to 10 percent or less of total daily calories. A moderately active 8-year-old boy, for example, should have no more than 10 teaspoons of added sugar each day. That’s less than what’s found in that one glass of a powdered drink mix.

For the best health, skip sugary drinks like powdered mixes and serve your families water or low-fat milk. Learn more about sugary drinks on our website.

We want kids to be more physically active — to get out and play every day for 60 minutes. Regular physical activity does more than help kids stay healthy and strong. The national Let’s Move! Active Schools program stresses that activity is also linked to higher test scores, improved school attendance, increased focus and better behavior in class, and other healthy habits.

Schools are a great place to help increase the amount of physical activity Alaska children get each week.

“Since they spend so much time in school, it’s a great place to work on their activity levels,” said Nancy Blake, a physical education teacher at Goose Bay Elementary School in Wasilla and the Alaska state coordinator for the Let’s Move Active Schools program. “The program provides a clearinghouse of information for people committed to improving physical activity for kids.”

Let’s Move! Active Schools is a free, national program that is part of First Lady Michelle Obama’s Lets Move! Program, which is supported by health, education and private sector organizations. The program assists schools in ensuring that 60 minutes of physical activity a day is the new norm in K-12 schools across the country.

As Blake explains it, anyone can register their school, from a teacher to a parent to a principal. Then they will be asked to take a short survey.

“The survey is to see what your school’s strengths are and where your needs are,” said Blake. “It’s also a way nationally for us to get an idea of what is happening out there in the schools. It gives us a way to answer the question: How can we provide more activities before school, after school, and throughout the school day, for kids?”

In addition to accessing an online resource clearinghouse, registered Active Schools can learn about grants, discounts, and special offers from public and private sector sources to buy equipment or supplies to address the school’s needs or to attend training and professional development opportunities. Active Schools can also access experienced physical activity and physical education advisors. National experts provide customized support and virtual and in-person trainings.

“There are a ton of partnerships out there so you can access grant money to provide more programs in your school,” said Blake.

Furthermore, schools can get special awards and incentives for their efforts to provide a healthy and active environment. Seward Middle School was awarded a bronze Active Schools prize in 2014.

Yolanda Ifflander, the staff nurse at Seward Middle School, said the program looked at the school’s class instruction regarding physical activity and good nutrition, as well as the school’s wellness policy. The school provides 50 minutes of PE every day for every student, but that was just a starting point.

“They examined our school menu to see if it meets federal requirements for low fat, low salt and servings of fruits and vegetables. It’s very detailed, and you have to provide proof that you are meeting their standards,” she said.

As part of the award, Ifflander received funding to attend a national Active Schools conference, where she shared ideas with Active Schools coordinators from around the nation and learned about new private sector grant and award sources to help schools continue their positive work. Ifflander later applied for a healthy eating prize from a blender manufacturer, and was one of only five schools nationwide to win. The school received $10,000 to buy fresh produce, along with several blenders and recipes. Ifflander spent three months teaching a group of about 40 youth how to make healthy smoothies every school day, using fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, almond milk and coconut water.

“It was my goal to expose kids to healthy fruits and vegetables they might not otherwise get exposed to, either due to family finances that limit what their parents can buy, or because of where we are located,” she said.

Ifflander said the kids in the program loved the smoothies, and she has carried on the effort to make smoothies for all the kids at the school as funds allow.

It might be cold outside in February, but that doesn’t stop many Alaskans from getting active. If your family needs a little nudge to get bundled up and play outside, Public Schools Celebration Week might be just the ticket.

Great Alaska Schools is partnering with United Way and other Alaska agencies this week to celebrate the “Public Good in Public Education.” Part of the plan includes designating Friday, Feb. 19, as “Play Outside Together Day.” The organizers are hoping to encourage young people and their friends and families to take advantage of the day off of school in Anchorage and other school districts to get outside and play.

“We are encouraging and supporting kids getting out and skating, skiing, walking, or doing anything fun outdoors,” said Andrea Cordano, one of the organizers of the week-long event from Great Alaska Schools Anchorage. “We are always happy when we can support what is healthy for kids!”

If inside play is more appealing, Thursday, Feb. 18, is designated as “Play and Learn Day.” In Anchorage, local child development agencies, public school after-school programs, and municipal library locations will be organizing indoor activities for all ages throughout the day and evening, including story time, music, yoga and more.

The week will end with a “Public School Spirit Day” between noon and 3 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 20, with a free, fun, outdoor event at Westchester Lagoon in Anchorage.

“There will be skating on the lagoon and Nordic skiing around the lagoon, and several dance groups, storytelling groups and music groups from our local schools will be performing, ” said Cordano. She encouraged everyone to wear their school colors to celebrate their school pride. A shuttle bus from West High School’s parking lot will help reduce parking headaches for the event.

​Some advertising will tell you that your kids need to replenish their bodies with sports drinks when they get out and play.

They don’t.

Leading health organizations that promote children’s health state that kids only need water to rehydrate when they are playing most sports or being physically active. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) says “Sports and energy drinks are heavily marketed to children and adolescents, but in most cases kids don’t need them – and some of these products contain substances that could be harmful to children.”

“For most children engaging in routine physical activity, plain water is best,” Dr. Holly Benjamin, who was a member of the AAP’s Council on Sports Medicine and Fitness, stated in a 2011 report about sports and energy drinks. “Sports drinks contain extra calories that children don’t need, and could contribute to obesity and tooth decay.“

Play Every Day is sharing that message in a new TV public service announcement that began airing statewide this month. The PSA features Alaska children playing basketball. Preston Pollard, a professional skateboarder who grew up in Alaska, voices the main message: Just because you play sports doesn’t mean you need sports drinks. Water and a healthy snack is all you need to bounce back when you get out and play.

Sports drinks have only a small amount of electrolytes — minerals that you lose when you sweat — but they come packed with a large amount of added sugar. A typical 20-ounce sports drink that’s sold on grocery store shelves or in vending machines has about 9 teaspoons of added sugar.

Is 9 teaspoons too much? For the first time, the 2015 U.S. Dietary Guidelines for Americans delivered a recommended limit to the amount of added sugar we eat and drink every day. The limit is 10 percent or fewer of total daily calories. That means a moderately active 8-year-old boy should have no more than 10 teaspoons of added sugar each day. If he drinks a sports drink on the soccer field, he’s almost reached his added sugar limit in one drink alone — and that doesn’t count all the added sugars in his cereal at breakfast, granola bar at snack, jelly on his sandwich, even spaghetti sauce with dinner.

To learn more about the large amount of sugar hiding in sports drinks and other sugary drinks, visit Play Every Day. Email playeveryday@alaska.gov if you’d like posters and short lesson plans related to sugary drinks for your school, clinic or business.

These schools are among 20 new elementary schools in all corners of Alaska that have signed up for the spring Healthy Futures Challengethat starts this week. Other new schools that signed up for the free physical activity challenge are in Juneau (Auke Bay, Gastineau, Glacier Valley and Juneau Community Charter) and more remote communities like Thorne Bay, Port Alexander, Hollis and Naukati.

That brings the grand total to 195 elementary schoolsin 36 school districts that have signed up for the spring Challenge – more schools than have ever signed up for a previous Challenge period. (Healthy Futuresand Play Every Day have a goal to sign up 200 elementary schools, so it’s not too late to sign up! Principals or teachers can sign up their schools by visiting the Healthy Futures website.)

Here’s how the challenge works:

In schools that signed up, participating kindergarten through sixth-grade students will hike, bike, jump, run, skate or ski their way to 60 minutes of activity a day. They can count their activity at recess, during gym class, and add in time before and after school and on weekends. If they hit the 60-minute mark at least 15 days of the month and log their activity on a simple form, they will win prizes for each month of the Challenge. The spring challenge runs February, March and April.

There are plenty of low-cost and no-cost physical activities around Alaska to help kids hit their 60-minute goal for the Challenge. Below are a few upcoming events in Anchorage and Palmer.

·The Stud Run – Sand Lake Elementary in Anchorage is hosting its first Stud Run at 10 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 6. They’re calling it the “only lake-based winter wellness fun run” that follows a 1.75 mile lap around the frozen Sand Lake. The untimed run/walk, which is a fundraiser for the school, starts and ends near the dock behind Sand Lake Elementary.

·Nunataq Snowshoe Challenge – Come to the Government Peak Recreation Area in Palmer at 11 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 20, for the snowshoe challenge. The event includes a free 1K race for kids ages 3-10, with no snowshoes required. “Just line up and have fun!” the website says. Participants also can pay to enter a 5K, 10K and a 50-yard dash.

·Ski 4 Kids – Sign up your children for the annual Ski 4 Kids Day on Saturday, March 5. Kids up to age 14 can participate in cross country ski races, obstacle courses and mock biathlons at Kincaid Park in Anchorage. There’s no participant fee for the event, but a recommended $20 donation. Proceeds go to the Anchorage Parks and Recreation’s Ski Outreach Program and a grant program that provides ski equipment to schools and youth groups.

There are many more physical activity events for families in the coming months. Visit the Healthy Futures calendarto find out what’s happening in your community.

Emily Henry, the wellness coordinator for the Ketchikan Gateway Borough School District, said the staff’s commitment to its school translated into a bronze award for creating a healthier school with a smarter lunchroom, and for adding emphasis on physical education and activity.“The staff is really involved in the success of their students, not only for health, but for academics, too,” Henry said.

Tongass, as part of the Ketchikan school district, is one of a number of schools that have partnered with the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services’ Obesity Prevention and Control Program to improve nutrition and physical activity for its young students.

“Healthy students learn better, and we are so excited to see schools like Tongass recognized for their efforts to prevent childhood obesity,” said Lauren Kelsey, who works with the state’s program to help schools improve nutrition and activity.

Tongass, a charter school for about 170 pre-kindergarten through sixth grade children, has added a number of programs during recent years to improve the health of its students.

HealthierUS schools must meet criteria demonstrating commitment to a healthy school environment, including implementing a local school wellness policy, as mandated by Congress.Tongass follows the Ketchikan school district’s wellness policy, recently updated based on the recommendations of the state’s Gold Standard School Wellness Policy.

HUSSC schools focus on improving the quality of foods served and providing students with nutrition education. The Tongass lunch room now has two salad bars – one for the younger kids and one for the older ones –built according to the shorter heights of the children.

“They are kid-sized, so everything is at their level,” Henry said.

The district’s schools hold a lunch menu contest that allows students to design a menu item. If the food service staff agrees that the item includes healthy portions of dairy, protein, vegetable and other nutritional components, the item gets added to the district’s lunch menu. If the new meal turns out to be both tasty and popular, it continues to be added to the menu. One of those favorite meals came from a Tongass student and includes a vegetable beef stir fry with broccoli, cauliflower, peppers, and carrots, alongside a fruit salad of blueberries, strawberries, bananas, peaches, cherries and pineapple. That’s four vegetables and six different fruits in just one lunch.

Tongass also addressed some physical activity challenges in unique ways. The charter school shares a building – and a gym – with another school. Its physical education teacher also must spend time as a school counselor. Given that, space and staff-time allows each Tongass student to get 60 minutes a week of physical education time. Tongass staff came up with a number of ways to add to that time, getting students closer to the recommended 60 minutes of daily physical activity for the best health. The school is next door to the city’s recreation center, which has a pool. Once a week, all students go to the center for 40 minutes of swimming, Henry said. Even more, the teachers for each grade level are expected to add at least 15 minutes of movement every day to the regular classroom, Henry said. The school also offers extra-curricular clubs for karate and running and weekly enrichment courses to provide additional physical activity time, she said.

Tongass also participates in the Healthy Futures Challenge, a free, school-based physical activity challenge run by the nonprofit Alaska Sports Hall of Fame. Tongass is one of almost 200 Alaska elementary schools that offer the challenge during the school year. Children log their physical activity each month on simple forms, turn them in at school, and win prizes for being active. Participating schools also can receive grants to support their physical activity programs.

If your school interested in working toward a HealthierUS School Challenge award, go online and learn how to improve nutrition and physical activity in schools.

We’re all about promoting play, so we wanted to learn more about the first-ever PLAAY Summit to be held in Anchorage on Feb. 19 and 20.

Our partner in physical activity — the Alaska Sports Hall of Fame that runs the statewide Healthy Futures Challenge for kids — is presenting the Positive Leadership for Active Alaskan Youth or PLAAY Summit that focuses on using physical activity to improve the health and well-being of Alaska youth. The Summit is geared toward teachers, parents, nurses and health care providers, coaches, and any adults who educate, coach or mentor Alaska youth in sports and other activities. The Alaska Sports Hall of Fame is organizing the conference with Alaska physical therapist Wallace “Wally” Wilson, who previously ran the Coaches Clinic that was focused on sports medicine issues for youth.

"The objective of the PLAAY Summit is to ensure those in leadership positions in our state have the right tools to promote and mentor all that is beneficial about sports and physical activity," said Harlow Robinson, Alaska Sports Hall of Fame Executive Director.

The Summit will be held from 12 p.m. – 5 p.m. Friday, Feb. 19, and 8 a.m. – 5 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 20. Participants will meet in Conference Rooms 1 and 2 of the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium, Consortium Office Building, located at 4000 Ambassador Drive in Anchorage. The registration fee is $150, and University of Alaska Anchorage students and Anchorage School District employees can attend for $50. Registration can be completed online.

The main focus is on physical activity, but speakers also will address psychological and social-emotional development of Alaska youth. Participants will hear a keynote address from Dan Bigley. Professionally, Bigley has a master’s degree in social work and is the clinical director at Denali Family Services. Many people in Alaska also know Bigley’s story of continuing to strive for his passions and goals after surviving a bear attack. Some of the other featured speakers include the following Alaska professionals:

Dr. Jean Marcey, a certified personal trainer, wellness coach and assistant professor who will talk about recognizing and using your strengths;

Robert “Trey” H. Coker, who earned a doctorate in Exercise Science and now teaches at the University of Fairbanks, will talk about the effectiveness of physical activity programs for Alaska Native children living in remote communities;

Lynne Young, a certified athletic trainer, will talk about the risk of concussions;

Eric Boyer, a training coordinator with the University of Alaska, will talk about the importance of physical activity in suicide prevention; and

Haley Hughes, a registered dietitian at Providence Alaska Medical Center, will talk about the best nutrition and hydration options for youth in sports.

Continuing Nursing Education certificates and professional development credits will be available. For more information about the PLAAY Summit, email Wallace Wilson.

The 2015 guidelines recommend that we limit our added sugars to less than 10 percent of the calories we eat and drink each day. Added sugars are sugars, syrups and other sweeteners that are added to foods or drinks when they are processed or prepared. Easy examples are the sugars added to soda, cookies and sweetened breakfast cereals. Added sugars do not include naturally occurring sugars, such as those in plain white milk and whole fruits.

These new guidelines reinforce Play Every Day’s mission to reduce the number of sugary drinks that Alaska children and families consume every day. In Alaska, high consumption of sugary drinks starts at a young age. One out of 5 Alaska parents of elementary-age children serves their children a sugary drink every day, and 2 out of 3 Alaska parents serve their kids sugary drinks one or more times each week, according to a recent state survey of hundreds of Alaska parents. Recent statewide surveys also showed that 42 percent of Alaska high school students and adults consume one or more sugary drinks every day.

The national Dietary Guidelines are revised every five years and issued jointly by the US Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Agriculture. The new guidelines followed a review of the most current science around nutrition and issued recommendations to reduce obesity and prevent chronic diseases like type 2 diabetes, heart disease and high blood pressure. In Alaska, about 1 out of 3 children is overweight and obese, and 2 out of 3 adults are overweight or obese.

The Dietary Guidelines call for a reduction in how much sugar we eat and drink, but it turns out drinks can contribute the most to our daily sugar intake. Sugary drinks are the No. 1 source of added sugar in Americans’ daily diets. There is strong evidence that consuming sugary drinks is linked to obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease and tooth decay.

For many Americans, the new daily sugar limit will be a big change to how they eat and drink. The average American consumes about 17 teaspoons of added sugar every day – in their sugary drinks, cereals, snack bars, spaghetti sauce, even condiments like ketchup. In order to meet the new daily limit on added sugars, they would need to significantly cut that sugar intake. According to the guidelines, a person eating an average 2,000-calorie daily diet should limit their daily sugar to about 12.5 teaspoons.

What does that look like?

It turns out you can eat — and drink —12 and a half teaspoons of sugar very quickly. A 20-ounce bottle of soda sold on grocery store shelves and in vending machines can have 16 teaspoons of added sugar. Drinking just that one bottle would take you over the daily limit — and that doesn’t even count the rest of the foods and drinks you’ll consume that day. A 16-ounce glass of a powdered orange drink in the morning — a common beverage in Alaska — has about 11 teaspoons of added sugar. Hand a child a sports drink on the soccer field and he’ll drink 9 teaspoons of added sugar in a few big gulps.

Play Every Day’s latest TV public service announcement and poster campaign show how sugar can add up during the day. Drinking a powdered drink for breakfast, a fruit-flavored sugary drink for lunch, a sports drink as a snack, and a can of soda for dinner can add up to 38 teaspoons of sugar from just the drinks alone. That’s more than three times the amount of sugar in the new guidelines’ limit for daily sugar intake.

Added sugars can be tricky to spot because they go by many different names, such as high fructose corn syrup, honey, glucose and sucrose. That’s why it’s important to read the ingredient list on the back of a drink or food container to find all the added sugars. If a sweetener by any name is in the first three ingredients, the food or drink is loaded with added sugars.

To reduce the amount of added sugar you drink every day, choose water or low-fat milk instead of sodas, sports drinks, powdered drinks and other sugary beverages. Make it easier to choose water by carrying a water bottle with you. Pack a water bottle in your child’s backpack or lunch box. Add a bit of flavor to your water by putting slices of lemon or lime or sprigs of mint into your glass.

​In its first year, NANANordic took ski gear and coaches to villages in the NANA region to get kids doing something positive outside. They went to four villages and involved 18 coaches and 600 students in 2012.

Now known as Skiku – a name that attaches the word “ski” to the Inupiaq word for ice – the program reached 40 communities and 4,500 kids from Bethel to Barrow in 2015. The program’s growth and success prompted the President’s Council on Fitness, Sports & Nutrition to select Skiku as one of 47 recipients for a PCFSN Community Leadership Award for making sports, physical activity, fitness, and nutrition-related programs available in their communities.

Lars Flora, a founder and director of Skiku, expects to reach the same number of students and communities in 2016. They will go to every community they went to last year, plus head to Elim and St. Mary’s for the first time.

The idea is to get kids outside doing something fun and healthy. One of the organization’s New Year’s resolutions is to make sure “every ski in our inventory is being used by community members and students to explore Alaska’s winter landscape,” said Flora, a two-time Olympian in cross-country skiing.

What’s cool, said Robin Kornfield, chairman of Nordic Journeys who has been with Skiku from the beginning, is that many communities already had skiing histories. “When we first started, we didn’t know there were places where people skied and had been doing it for 20 years,” she explained.

People in places like White Mountain and Unalakleet had come to Anchorage and skied in junior nationals, she added. These communities already had Nordic skiing legacies, as shared by Helen Spindler in this video.

What Skiku does is put volunteer coaches who are Olympians, World Cup racers, community coaches and elite high school athletes into villages where they spend a week teaching students how to ski and participate in biathlons, which combine skiing with precision rifle shooting.

At the same time, the group leaves donated skis, boots and poles with the villages it visits so that community members can use gear whenever the snow flies.

New this year will be a ski race program in the 11 NANA region communities and volunteer involvement in Anchorage elementary schools, noted Kornfield.

Come March and April, coaches will again travel by plane and skis to communities throughout the state. Here’s the Skiku coaching schedule this year:

​As we cross off the last days on the 2015 calendar, many of us are thinking about how we’re going to make 2016 a great new year. What are we going to do differently, do better, or do more or less often?

Here’s the goal Kikkan Randallrecently wrote us about. Kikkan is a 4-time Olympic cross country skier who’s usually globetrotting right now, attacking the World Cup ski racing circuit throughout the winter. But this year is unusual in that she’s spending more time at home in Alaska: Kikkan is pregnant with her first child.

“My fitness goal for 2016 is to get outside and do at least three different winter activities every week,” she said. “Skiing, skating, sledding, snowshoeing and snow biking are some of my favorites! Mixing up your activities makes playing every day fun and exciting.”

·Pick one thing you want to focus on and go for it.

Fellow Olympic skier of Alaska, Sadie Bjornsen, said her goal is to enjoy the outdoors every single day.

“Whether I am doing the hardest running intervals, or I am hiking with my family, or I am spending hours on the road roller-skiing, I want to make sure I enjoy each and every breath of fresh air outside that I have,” she said.

Did you see how Sadie talked about her family? Another way to help make these resolutions stick is to get other people involved.

·Share your goal with family and friends.

Sadie said she uses physical activity to chase her Olympic dreams, but also to stay healthy and happy.

“Bring friends, bring your family,” she said. “Share the most natural happy vibes there is in the world!”

Kids need to strive for 60 minutes of physical activity on the 12 days of winter break between Dec. 16 and Jan. 3 to complete the challenge. The first 200 kids who register will get stop watches and family day passes to The Alaska Club. Participation is free and doesn’t have to take place at The Alaska Club.

Last year, 300 kids participated, said Janet Warner, the executive director of Group Fitness, Fitness Programming and Family Recreation for The Alaska Club. “This year we changed the requirements slightly to align with the recommendation of 60 minutes of play each day or most days,” she added.

Kids can choose how and where they want to get moving, whether outside or in, by ice skating, sledding, swimming, dancing, doing yoga, just getting outside, or playing soccer, volleyball, or freeze tag.

Families can also stay active during the darkest days of the year by joining in community fun runs and events, or just making a point of going for walks together.

Alyse Loran, the Healthy Futures Coordinator, suggests skating, skiing and joining group activities. She lives in Anchorage, for example, and noted that the Municipality of Anchorage plans to hot mop Westchester Lagoon. There are rinks all around town, she added, but it pays to check ice conditions before heading out the door. The city also has a winter activity guide with more options.

“The snow making loop at Kincaid is great right now,” said Loran. “And the Hillside trails are ready for rock skis [old skis you don’t mind banging up!]. Just a little more snow and we should be skiing everywhere again.”

Elementary schools across Alaska can sign up for the Spring Healthy Futures Challenge starting today.

If your school is interested, don’t wait too long to sign up. Healthy Futures will be registering schools online on a first-come, first-serve basis starting at 8:30 a.m. Monday, Dec. 14. The free physical activity challenge will run February through April and award prizes to K-6 students who log their physical activity and turn in activity logs at the end of each month. This fall, 160 schools from 36 school districts in Alaska participated in the Challenge.

Play Every Day is partnering with Healthy Futures to reach the goal of registering 200 elementary schools from across the state for the Spring Challenge. Schools that sign up early will have a chance to win some great prizes, including a gift card to buy physical activity equipment for the school, as well as Healthy Futures and Play Every Day T-shirts for students and staff.

Play Every Day and Healthy Futures have partnered for the past four years to help empower Alaska’s kids to build the healthy habit of daily physical activity. Just four years ago, only 36 elementary schools and about 1,300 individual students participated in the Healthy Futures Challenge. This fall, more than 15,700 individual students participated in the 160 schools. That’s more than 1 in 5 elementary-age students in Alaska logging their physical activity to meet the challenge.

Sign up your school today to help more Alaska kids have a free, fun way to be physically active every day – and win prizes along the way.

To participate in Play Every Day’s second video contest for Alaska elementary schools, Yates’ class needed to come up with a script and then film a 30-second video about why water and low-fat milk are healthier drinks than sugary beverages, like soda, powdered mixes and sports drinks. Their video won second place in the contest.

While producing their video, Yates and her 14 students accepted a bigger challenge. They decided they would only drink healthy drinks, like water and milk, during the weeks it took them to film the project.

Yates said one student took that challenge home with him. His family went out for pizza once a week, the one time a week his mother allowed him to pick any drink he wanted, even soda. The boy told his mother he’d have milk instead. When the question came up again about what he wanted to drink, the boy stuck to his plan. No soda. Just milk.

The health message the class focused on in their video “sunk in so well,” said Yates.

Yates’ class worked hard to make that message sink in. Yates tied health class into the video project. She invited a local woman who was a public health professional to do a presentation about healthy and unhealthy drinks. She showed the students how many teaspoons of sugar were hiding in sugary drinks. (The answer is a lot. Check out the Play Every Day poster series that compares the amount of added sugar in common treats — think doughnuts, cookies, and ice cream sandwiches — and sugary drinks like sodas, sports drinks and more.)

Yates then added math to the project. The students were focusing on estimation, so she asked each student to think of a sugary drink they liked and estimate how much sugar it contained. They talked about chocolate shakes, sports drinks and other sugary beverages.Then they researched how much actual sugar was added to these drinks. They plotted their drinks and the added teaspoons of sugar on a bar graph to compare them.

“They were just astonished,” said Yates, referring to her students’ discovery of how much sugar was hiding in their drinks. “Several of them went home and shared it with their parents.”

Yates then brought in the music teacher. The students had to come up with a script. What if the script incorporated a jingle and some rhythm to make the words more fun? The students practiced a routine in which they drummed on empty cups and passed them around in a circle. While doing that, they sang their message:

Yates, who has been teaching for 20 years at the Craig City School District, said she’s always looking for activities that challenge and engage her students in many ways. That’s why the Play Every Day video contest attracted her when she saw an announcement for it.

“My class is just hungry and thirsty for activities,” she said. “They have a lot of energy and motivation. I was just wanting to take an opportunity like this to see where they could go with it.”

They stuck with it until the end. They did what the project asked – film a video – but in the process they learned about math, music and other important subjects.

​When Marisa Glieco saw the announcement for the Play Every Day video contest for Alaska elementary schools, she decided to put it to a classroom vote.

Glieco, thefifth grade teacher at Lake Otis Elementary in the Anchorage School District, asked her 30 students to raise their hands if they wanted to create a 30-second video promoting water and low-fat milk instead of sugary drinks like soda, powdered mixes and sports drinks.

Almost every hand in the class went up.

That started it, and from there Glieco’s class got to work on what would be the winning entry for this year’s Play Every Day video contest for Alaska elementary schools.

One of the rules of the contest was to put the kids in charge of the final video, and that’s exactly what Glieco did.

She asked her students to write down the top three jobs they wanted in film production, and then write a letter to her explaining why they’d be good at those jobs. They vied for jobs like designing the props, putting together the costumes, auditioning the actors, filming the video on iPads, even editing the final video. The students took charge of the entire production. Glieco just provided direction when needed, but even then she had two students who were picked as the video directors and they took charge of managing all steps from start to finish.

“For the most part, I wanted to give them ownership,” said Glieco, the only teacher in Alaska to participate in the Play Every Day video contest two years in a row. Last year, her third and fourth grade class turned in a creative video using Lego animation to show all the fun ways you could get your 60 minutes of physical activity every day. During the past two years, eight schools in five Alaska school districts turned in videos promoting physical activity and healthy drinks during Play Every Day’s video contests designed for elementary schools.

Glieco’s whole class brainstormed ideas for the video’s script this year. Maybe they should include a water-bottle super hero? What if they included Glieco’s dog in the video? Would that work?

“I was really proud of them,” she said. “It was just really neat to see their creativity come out.”

In the end, the Lake Otis class turned in two videos.One film was a play on an existing candy bar commercial, but this time the focus was on showing that water — not sugary drinks — satisfies. The second, winning video was a play on a game show, asking students to name the healthiest beverages to quench their thirst. After mistakenly guessing soda and juice, the student in the role of the game show host announces that water is the best drink to hydrate us when we’re thirsty. She then announces that it’s time for a message from our sponsors, and the video cuts to a group of students playing outside. A boy runs up to a bottle of water and drinks it, while words about water are spoken at a very fast-paced clip:

“The positive side effects for drinking water is you stay hydrated, it gives you power, and helps you avoid cavities. It is better than any other sports drinks, soda, or juice. Finally if you drink water you will be able to play every day!”

This speedy read about water was student Arlin Galovin’s idea. He’d seen it done at the end of ads promoting medicines, and he wanted to try it on their video promoting water.

“I thought it would be funny, and people would laugh,” he said. (For the record, the Play Every Day judges scoring this video laughed very hard.)

Students said working on the video project taught them how to work together and complete a project as a class. They had fun while learning how to do their jobs to finish the video. They also learned that some drinks are marketed as healthy, but they’re often not.

​We walk by water fountains all day long. They’re in the hallways at school. They’re in our offices. They’re next to the bathrooms at the stores where we shop.

Why stop, rather than walk by them?

Play Every Day has the answer in a colorful poster that reminds you about how refreshing water tastes and how hydrating it is. Water’s free at the fountain, after all, and you can drink it right there or put it in a cup or water bottle for later. Better yet, it hydrates without added sugars.

Play Every Day’s new “Drink Water” poster aims to put its very simple message above water fountains or water-bottle filling stations in schools and other facilities throughout Alaska to encourage people to drink up or fill up. This message is key to Play Every Day’s campaign focused on motivating Alaska families to drink fewer sugary drinks (like soda, sports drinks and powdered mixes) and choose water, fat-free milk or low-fat milk instead.

With the help of our partner, Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium, we sent our “Drink Water” posters to hundreds of rural and urban Alaska schools, tribal partners, public health clinics, and Community Health Aide and Dental Health Aide clinics.

Would you like “Drink Water” posters to hang in your school, office or building? You can download the posters for free in various sizes and formats, or request printed posters to be sent to you. Just visit our Resources website and see what educational materials are available at no cost.

Once at the site, you’ll find our video public service announcements (PSAs) focused on drinking fewer sugary drinks and choosing water, fat-free milk or low-fat milk instead. Some clinics in Alaska are running these PSAs in their waiting rooms. Please let us know if you’d like these PSAs on discs to be aired in your buildings.

You’ll also find our print materials and our sugary drinks lesson plan designed for Alaska elementary schools. Part of the lesson plan is online here. If you’re an educator and haven’t received a copy of the complete lesson plan, or you’re someone looking for printed posters and other materials, please email us at playeveryday@alaska.gov. We’ll send you the plan and any other materials that will help share the message about the importance of choosing water or milk instead of sugary drinks for the best health.

Teacher Jared Carlson reported 100 percent participation by his 57 students in elementary and middle school for the month of September. He’s planning for 100 percent participation for October, too.

Carlson, the physical education teacher in Galena, taught in Unalakleet last year and watched the students there participate in the physical activity challenge, which encourages young students to be active at least 60 minutes a day for 15 days each month. If students log that activity and turn their log sheets into their schools, they can win prizes and the school can be eligible for grants that support buying physical activity equipment.

“I wanted to find a way to encourage the kids to move every day,” Carlson said. “All of them did it.”

One student moved to Galena after the Challenge had started this fall. Carlson said he had forgotten to tell the student about the Challenge, but no matter: The other classmates made sure the new student knew about it and gave him a log sheet to fill out.

The Fall Challenge will run through November in schools throughout the state. Though the Challenge started in mainly urban school districts in Alaska like Anchorage and Juneau, it has spread to communities small and large in 35 school districts during the past four years.

This year, the nonprofit program Healthy Futures and the state-run Play Every Day campaign partnered with the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium to promote daily physical activity and increased Healthy Futures participation in schools in rural, and often remote, areas of the state. As a result, new schools signed up from communities on the Aleutians Islands all the way to villages above the Arctic Circle. About 185 Alaska elementary schools have signed up for the Fall Challenge.

About 11,000 elementary students across Alaska have already been logging their physical activity this fall. Elementary schools in Savoonga and Kiana participated for the first time this fall, with about a third of students in both schools turning in physical activity logs. Ketchikan Charter School reported high participation, with 95 of 128 students turning in physical activity logs, said Alyse Loran, who oversees the Challenge for the Healthy Futures program.

In Galena, Carlson makes participation in the Healthy Futures Challenge a part of the students’ physical education grade. His elementary students get the nationally recommended amount of physical education of 30 minutes a day, 5 days a week. Students also get 15 minutes of daily recess. After that, students find their own way to put in the remaining minutes of activity to meet the 60-minute daily goal for good health. Carlson said they’ve logged their time hiking, fishing, playing soccer, playing hide and seek, even moose hunting.

“Basketball is huge,” he said. Galena also has an indoor swimming pool, which helps the kids stay active throughout the year.

To show support, Carlson fills out a Healthy Futures log and puts it on his classroom door. He writes down his time participating in physical education class, playing volleyball, and walking to and from school – a 2 ½ mile trek each way.

In just 30 seconds, the PSA flashes back to the sugary drinks a boy consumes at breakfast, lunch, snack and dinner. At the same time, a split screen shows the sugar adding up in a glass. By the end, the boy consumes 38 teaspoons of sugar, almost a cup, just from sugary drinks that day. The take-home message is to skip all those sugary drinks and choose water or low-fat milk for the best health.

Play Every Day is using its message to bring attention to sugary drinks, the No. 1 source of added sugar in our daily diets. The American Heart Association has set limits for how much sugar adults should eat or drink, namely 6 to 9 teaspoons of added sugar a day. That’s less sugar than what you’d find in a single can of soda, or a bottle of a sports drink or a fruit-flavored drink.

The campaign goes beyond raising awareness and inspires families to reduce the amount of sugary drinks served to children. Sugary drinks are linked with a number of serious health problems, including obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease and tooth decay. In Alaska, one out of three children is overweight or obese and two out of three adults are overweight or obese.

Play Every Day’s new sugary drink messages build on last year’s about how much sugar was hiding in sugary drinks. Those messages put sodas, sports drinks, energy drinks, and powdered drinks alongside easily recognizable food comparisons. For example, a 20-ounce bottle of soda could contain as much sugar as 16 chocolate mini doughnuts, and a 20-ounce sports drink could have as much sugar as 10 chocolate chip cookies.

We’ve created a new set of posters that match the new TV messages and have sent them to hundreds of Alaska schools, health clinics and tribal partners. We also created and posted a new school lesson plan that involves showing students the PSA and using a special pop-up poster to show how sugar adds up during the day. The videos, posters, print materials, and lesson plan are posted online. To request a printed lesson plan or any other Play Every Day material, please email playeveryday@alaska.gov.

The Play Every Day campaign also focuses on the importance of daily physical activity for the best health and maintaining a healthy weight. The campaign promotes at least 60 minutes of physical activity every day for children and supports participation in the Healthy Futures Challenge, a free school-based physical activity challenge. It’s not too late for elementary schools to sign up for the challenge online.

​Kids might groan about running the mile, but they’ll run plenty of them when playing games like tag and capture the flag with friends. That’s what the Girls on the Run program counts on.

Now in over 225 cities in North America, Girls on the Run focuses on getting pre-adolescent girls physically active through group games and activities while helping them build a strong sense of identity, power and resilience.

Already in Juneau and Homer, the program launched in Cordova this fall and will finish its first session with a community-wide 5K fun run on Oct. 31. Nicole Songer, a volunteer coach and executive director for the Cordova Family Resource Center, said the girls love it. “They’re learning things through games, they’re getting exercise through activities, and they don’t even realize they’re running a lot.”

In Cordova the program will help girls get the recommended 60 minutes of Play Every Day and contribute to domestic and sexual violence prevention. The Family Resource Center received a one-time prevention grant from the Council on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault to start the program, which typically includes up to 20 girls per session.

“I have seen in these few short weeks girls that would barely speak sharing their views and ideas,” said Songer. Other girls who weren’t getting out and having fun with friends were now “creating a new support group of peers and adults.”

They also learn their differences and embrace them, come to understand what teamwork and friendship mean, and learn to “unplug the negative plug.” That means countering the negative self-talk kids get exposed to on TV, radio and social media – the “you’re not good enough” messages that bombard kids and can become the stories they begin to believe about themselves.

All kids get these messages and need guidance in knowing how to combat them. Cordova has had a basketball program for boys through the Choose Respect Initiative for a few years now.

“We would hear people say, ‘What about the girls?’” said Songer. Now she has the answer; the he community has a positive plug for them, too.

To start a program, communities need to organize a council, get adult volunteers to coach, and submit an initial application and membership fee to the nonprofit, Girls on the Run International, at http://www.girlsontherun.org/.

Photo courtesy of the Cordova Family Resource Center.

Caption: Girls on the Run group talks about bullying and how to address it during a lesson between physical activities.

To celebrate the centennial of the National Park Service, fourth graders and their families can receive an “Every Kid in a Park” pass that gives free access to hundreds of national parks, lands and waters for one year. Each pass says “Use as often as you like through August 2016.”

“Because no matter who you are, no matter where you live, our parks, our monuments, our lands, our waters – these places are your birthright as Americans,” said President Barack Obama on the Every Kid in a Park website.

2.After completing the activity, you’ll get a voucher for a free 4th Grade Annual Pass. (If you want, you can exchange your paper vouchers for a keepsake pass at certain national park locations.)

3.Print the vouchers.

4.Pick a park! Take your voucher with you to show to the park ranger at the entrance to any national park. If there’s no park ranger, you can put the pass on the dashboard of your family’s car.

You and your families will have free access to the national parks through August 30, 2016. If you visit a national park site that charges entrance fees, the pass will give you free access to all children under 16 years old and up to three adults traveling with the fourth-grader. The pass does not cover camping, boats and special tours.

Now, if you’re in fourth grade, don’t delay. Get online and take just five minutes to get a year’s worth of free fun and adventure in America’s national parks.

Top photo courtesy of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; Laubenstein, Ronald.

​In student-made videos from last year’s Play Every Day PSA contest, kids shared the many ways they like to play – skiing, running, dancing, playing tag, climbing, zig-zagging over the playground, and just goofing off in the snow.

This year’s PSA contest invites students from Alaska public elementary schools to tackle a different message about how sugary drinks like soda, sports drinks and powdered drinks can add up to weight gain, tooth decay and a higher risk of type 2 diabetes and heart disease. The main message is simple: drink water instead.

Marisa Glieco’s third- and fourth-grade class at Lake Otis Elementary created a video last year. As the class came up with ideas and produced the PSA, she noticed how much kids really do care about their healthy and unhealthy habits, and how they want to share what they’re doing to improve their health.

“I really enjoyed watching the students work together and learn from one another,” she said.“I believe that this is just a great relatable interactive way to get our students involved with the promotion of healthy habits.”

Her fifth-grade class this year has already narrowed their ideas down to two and will plot them out to see which will work in the 30-second time frame. She pretty much leaves everything from the brainstorming to the editing to the kids.

“They are brilliant and I love how they come up with ideas and piggy back off each other,” she said, “as well as how they start to find out what they would like to do - costume design, set design, directing, acting. It really is something that is difficult to explain - it is just such a passion project for myself and them - that all comes together organically.”

Students from public schools all over the state submitted 11 videos last year, and Play Every Day hopes to see even more this time around.

Creators of the top three videos, along with their schools, will receive gift cards or other prizes that support getting physically active and drinking water. Their PSAs will also appear as public service announcements online and through social media.

The PSA contest is open to all public elementary students and is free to enter. The deadline is 5 p.m., Oct. 30, 2015, and forms and rules are available at Play Every Day.

​This fall, the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium (ANTHC) started a new partnership with Play Every Day to get messages about physical activity and healthy drinks to families in rural communities, including some of the most remote communities in the state.

The goal of the Play Every Day campaign is to prevent and reduce childhood obesity — a serious health concern throughout Alaska. About 1 out of 3 children in Alaska is overweight or obese, and 2 out of 3 Alaska adults are overweight or obese. This puts thousands of Alaskans of all ages at risk for weight-related chronic diseases, such as type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

“Our vision at the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium is that Alaska Native people are the healthiest in the world. Partnering with Play Every Day is a natural fit aswe are both working toward the same goal — to prevent serious chronic health problems like obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular issues that can affect Alaskans from childhood all the way into adulthood,” said Erin Peterson, Wellness Strategies for Health Program Manager with ANTHC. “Play Every Day will be able to share educational materials that promote good health with families from Ketchikan to Unalaska to Point Hope.”

To improve the health of Alaska families, Play Every Day has focused its messages on two key areas: increasing the amount of physical activity that families get each day and reducing the number of sugary drinks they consume (think sodas, sports and energy drinks, powdered drinks and more).

ANTHC, Play Every Day and Healthy Futures are working together to increase the number of students who take the physical activity challenge that asks students to be active at least 60 minutes a day for 15 days each month. Students can add up all their activity each day — including activity during gym class and recess — to reach the 60-minute goal. Students and schools will win prizes for their participation. Elementary schools throughout Alaska can still sign up for the challenge.

This month, about 100 schools in rural Alaska and Alaska Native tribal partners will receive Play Every Day posters to hang as reminders for being physically active and choosing water instead of sugary drinks. These posters are all found online here. If you’d like posters to hang in your school, office or business, please email playeveryday@alaska.gov.

​Anchorage will get some well-deserved national attention at the White House in a Let’s Move! Cities, Towns and Counties event Sept. 16 that will acknowledge Anchorage and 51 other cities for obtaining five gold medals in five core obesity prevention areas.

This recognition of Anchorage’s efforts to reduce obesity results from a task force launched by Gray-Jackson and fellow Assembly member Dick Traini in February 2014. The group included advocates and representatives from nonprofits, the Anchorage School District, community groups, and state and municipal agencies (including Alaska’s Obesity Prevention and Control Program and Play Every Day campaign). The task force documented and helped implement programs that met five Let’s Move! goals:

·Start Early, Start Smart

·MyPlate, Your Place

·Smart Servings for Students

·Model Food Service

·Active Kids at Play

“Because of obesity prevention activities already taking place, mostly through efforts of the State and the Anchorage School District, the task force reached its goals in record time,” said Gray-Jackson. “I was impressed to see our community, with such high obesity numbers, taking the lead to improve the situation. Because Anchorage is one of the few cities reaching gold in all five goals, it really puts our community on the map. We are leaders in the Far North.”

Obesity Prevention has come a long way, said Melanie Sutton, the Curriculum Coordinator for Health & Physical Education with the Anchorage School District. “The recognition of these accomplishments through the Let's Move! Anchorage awards is an affirmation that our efforts have been in the right direction,” she said.

The same day that Gray-Jackson introduces the First Lady, kids in Anchorage and Eagle River will be running in the Beach Lake Area Jamboree at Chugiak High School. The Anchorage School District elementary Jamborees will draw over 6,000 elementary students and even volunteers to cross-country trails across the city this week, according to Sutton.

Allowing kids to do what gives them joy makes all the difference in developing lifetime habits around physical activity, said Dr. Pete Mjos, a physician and advocate who participated in the recent task force. He hopes that national recognition will draw local attention to the 2006 Municipality of Anchorage Ten Year Plan on Obesity and Health.

The plan provides a rigorous strategy for increasing physical activity, improving access to nutritional food, and creating safe and accessible environments for people to get out and play, he said. “For me, the most significant thing is beyond the goal of getting recognized. What has been achieved and recognized should only be the foundation of what still needs to be done and implemented.”

​Last fall we tried something new. We asked Alaska kids to pick up a video camera and film students choosing fun ways to get out and play.

It was a hit. We received 11 videos from all over the state, so we’re doing it again this year.

With a twist.

This year, Play Every Day’s video PSA contest challenges elementary school students across Alaska to film a video that motivates kids to put down sugary drinks and choose water or low-fat milk. The contest starts now and the deadline for entries is Friday, October 30.

Play Every Day has been airing PSAs, or public service announcements, on TV for the past year that focus on the large amount of sugar hiding in drinks. It’s not just soda that’s loaded with sugar. Sports and energy drinks, powdered drinks, and vitamin-enhanced drinks come with large amounts of sugar that can lead to serious health problems, like tooth decay, obesity and diabetes. Our PSAs end with our take-home message: Choose healthier drinks. Drink water or low-fat milk.

Our PSAs are all online here. If you held the camera to tell the story, what would your PSA look like?

You have a chance to show us during the next two months. Here’s how it works:

Who: All Alaska public elementary school students in grades K-6. All entries must be supported and sponsored by a teacher or another adult school staff member. Students should take the lead in the creative direction and production, but an adult can advise students and help with the filming.

What: Make a 25-second public service announcement (PSA) video that motivates Alaska kids and families to choose water or low-fat milk instead of sugary drinks like soda, sports drinks and powdered drinks.

When: Start now! Come up with your ideas, film the video and turn it in by 5 p.m. October 30, 2015.

Where: Film at your school or in your communities.

Why: Kids have creative ideas, and we want to see how you would help spread the message about the importance of choosing healthy drinks.

A panel of judges from the Play Every Day campaign will select the top three videos based on overall presentation, creativity, quality and adherence to the contest criteria. The school that films the first-place video will receive a $500 gift card to buy physical activity equipment for the school, plus Play Every Day T-shirts and a reusable Play Every Day water cup for participating students, teachers and the principal. Prizes also are available for the second- and third-place entries.

Want more information about the contest? Please visit our webpage to learn more.

​It’s time to lace up those sneakers, zip up that coat and head outside to play. The Healthy Futures Challenge begins this week with a brand new goal for thousands of Alaska kids:

To complete the Challenge, students will do at least 60 minutes of physical activity each day.This fall, more than 180 Alaska elementary schools — including 61 elementary schools in the Anchorage School District — signed up for the free Healthy Futures Challenge. Participating kindergarten through sixth-grade students will hike, bike, jump, run, skate or ski their way to 60 minutes of activity a day. They can count their activity at recess, during gym class, and add in time before and after school and on weekends. If they hit the 60-minute mark at least half the days of the month and log their activity on a simple form, they will win prizes for each month of the Challenge.

It’s not too late for Alaska elementary schools to sign up for the Healthy Futures Challenge, which runs September, October and November. Principals or teachers can sign up their schools by visiting the Healthy Futures website this fall.

There are plenty of low-cost and no-cost physical activities around Alaska to help kids hit their 60-minute goal for the Challenge. Families in the Anchorage area can participate in the Tuesday Night Race series, which kicks off on Sept. 8 at Kincaid Park and ends Nov. 3. The series has races for all types of runners, including the youngest participants — called Munchkins — who run and walk a 1-3K course through the woods.

​Everyone knows the feeling. You can barely keep your eyes open, you keep forgetting things, your energy is low and the minutes take forever to pass — all signs that you didn’t get enough sleep.

With kids, though, inadequate sleep can look a lot different.

“It’s generally the opposite,” said Dr. Ross William Dodge, a pediatric sleep specialist at PEAK Neurology and Sleep Medicine in Anchorage. “If a 6-year-old misses a nap, they bounce off the walls. The presentation of sleep deprivation is hyperactivity, behavioral opposition — they don’t pay attention, they don’t listen, they don’t do well in school.”

A sleep deficit limits a child’s ability to cope with stress, solve problems and focus on school work, said Rita Kittoe, a public health nurse. An ongoing lack of sleep can lead to weight gain, a reduced ability to fight off colds, and aggressive or inappropriate behavior, she added.

“The body spends 20 to 30 years sleeping over the lifetime,” said Dr. Bill Lucht of the Alaska Sleep Clinic. “It’s not just an accident. Sleep conserves energy. It allows the processing of emotional content. It restores brain function and memory. It allows the body to replenish itself and do reparative work.”

Simply put, a chronic lack of sleep impacts all the body systems, said Dodge, and can create a constant state of inflammation that leads to the digestive system’s poor processing of food and a resulting craving for carbohydrates. The cycle continues when weight gain leads to insufficient sleep, and insufficient sleep to more weight gain.

The amount of sleep people need varies and changes with age, but the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute recommends that school-age children get at least 10 hours a day.

Nationally, between 30 percent and 40 percent of children have some consistent sleep-related complaint, Dodge said, and about 10 to 12 percent have some form of organic or physical sleep problem.

Inadequate sleep in kids can have lifelong health impacts. It affects their response time, as well as their ability to learn and make decisions — increasing the risk of accidents, said Lucht. The metabolic effects can lead to obesity and diabetes, he added, and people who don’t get enough sleep tend to have more social problems and lower incomes than those who do.

What’s a parent to do?

“It’s very, very basic what you do,” said Dodge. “Kids have a hard time when presented with multiple options. That’s where the parents need to set a bedtime routine that doesn’t vary. That doesn’t mean you have to set an alarm clock and have a rigorous schedule, but the general motions need to stay pretty set. Kids will fall into the routine themselves once it becomes a pattern in the household.”

(Photo: Dr. Ross Dodge)

It can take weeks for everyone in the house to adapt to new routines, but pushing through the hard part will reap great rewards for the entire family. If a child still has problems after following a healthy bedtime routine, talk to a pediatrician or sleep doctor. There could be a medical solution.

Keep in mind that some kids, such as extreme high performers and children with autism, Down syndrome or behavioral disorders, have higher rates of sleep disorders.

Sleep problems are worse now than ever before, said Dr. Lucht, which

“probably reflects the pressures of society, of constantly being in touch with work, of not being able to get away from the office.”

Don’t ignore the symptoms or wait until sleep problems become substantial. Set a bedtime routine and stick to it; create an environment where noise, light and other factors don’t get in the way of falling to sleep; and see a doctor if sleep problems continue after weeks of following a good routine.

Getting enough sleep doesn’t just make waking up easier; it prepares us for the challenges each day brings.

She filled it with steel birdshot to give it sound. The weight made the ball roll slower, so it wouldn’t travel too far when kicked.

Just like that, she adapted a ball that shows just how easy and simple it can be to help children of all abilities get physically active.

For the past 25 years, Skogstad has worked with children in school districts all over Alaska to help physical education teachers and teacher assistants learn how to make physical activity possible for all children, regardless of their physical, emotional or social abilities. Adapting the ball is just one example.

Growing up in Wisconsin, Skogstad knew from a young age that there was a big demand for professionals to help children with disabilities get physically active. “I realized that — and it was really obvious — that kids with disabilities were excluded from activities and sports,” said Skogstad.

Why? Because teachers and teaching assistants do not have training in how to include children with disabilities in physical activity, she said, and if they do not have knowledge about disabilities, the expectation and need for play, and activities that should be avoided, it can be difficult and unsettling for them to include children with disabilities.

Skogstad, who has bachelor’s and master’s degrees in adaptive physical education, has partnered with the Alaska Health and Disability Program to visit school districts in Juneau, Fairbanks, Alaska Gateway, Barrow, Kodiak and other regions in Alaska to show PE teachers and teacher assistants how to modify physical activities to include all children. Children of all abilities, she said, benefit from physical activity. It’s all about understanding children’s needs and finding ways to make activity happen for them.

If the whole class is going for a walk, a student who uses a walker can still be involved. He may be able to walk only a quarter of the distance, but he’s still being active with his classmates and friends.

“That’s huge for this student,” Skogstad said.

Skogstad said teachers need to pay special consideration to weather. A child with spina bifida, a birth defect which affects the spinal cord, may have limited sensation of cold temperatures when playing outside.

“You have to really pay attention because they can get frostbite really easy,” Skogstad said.

Kids who struggle with sensory issues, such as children with autism, benefit from partnering with peers during physical activity, she said. Sometimes Skogstad works with children who have many health care needs, such as requiring a wheelchair, suctioning of the airway, and breathing with an oxygen tank.

“This student cannot tell you, ‘Man, it would really be great if I could just stretch my arms,’” she said, but stretching is exactly what that student needs. Skogstad can train PE teachers how to use large balls and other tools to help these children move.

​Alaskans learn quickly that summers are short and it’s best to get out and enjoy the glorious days while we have them.

There are so many fun and healthy family activities that we lose count.

August, for example is “running month.” Mosquitoes are almost gone, cottonwoods have seeded, grass is still green and the clover is blooming along running trails.

Anchorage’s Big Wild Life Runs extend over several days from Aug. 13–15 with running events for all levels and ages, including a pasta feed, and inspiring clinics.

If you and your family are already into running, then you’re no doubt aware of the variety of runs available. But, if you are just getting into the occasional jog, and you would like to include your children in a healthy family activity, Big Wild Life Runs is just for you.

“Hundreds of kids come out for a chance to get some exercise, meet inspiring athletes in our community and participate in the Family Health and Safety Day on the Delaney Park Strip,” said Race Director Sharron Fisherman.

VIP guests this year are Jeff Galloway and Bart Yasso, and you can do a “run/walk” with them both mornings, Aug. 13 and 14, starting at 7:30 a.m. at the Hotel Captain Cook Lobby, 939 W. Fifth Ave.

Galloway, a 1972 U.S. Olympian (10,000 meters), is a Runner’s World magazine columnist and has run for more than 50 years, over 30 without injury. Yasso is the Chief Running Officer (sounds like a great job!) for Runner’s World and has completed races on all seven continents.

Now for the main event on Aug. 15:

The Kids’ 2K (about 1.2 miles) fun run starts at the Delaney Park Strip near 9th Ave. and G St. at 9:30 a.m., followed by Family Health and Safety Day. Each kid receives a hat and a medal. The event is free, but all participants must register and receive their bibs before the start of the race. Parents may run with their kids and do not need to register. Sign up at ChronoTrack Live. Children must be 12 years of age or younger to participate.

There are too many great events and runs for teens and adults to list here – from the mile run to the 49K ultra – so find the one that fits your family and sign up now.

With 2,000 acres, 150 within the city of Fairbanks, the refuge includes accessible trails, bird viewing areas, interpretive materials, and the farmhouse and barns once occupied by the Interior’s largest dairy.

“There is a huge range of habitats in this small area,” said Christine Huff, executive director of Friends of Creamer’s Field, a nonprofit that runs camps, events, nature walks and other educational activities in the refuge. “It’s really a pretty unique place. Some people have likened it to Central Park. It’s a chance to feel like you’re getting into the wilderness for a little bit — there’s a whole lot here to see in such a small space.”

Depending on timing, you might see migratory birds, foxes, woodchucks, even a distant moose while wandering through forests with birch, aspen, poplar, tamarack, and spruce. Educational materials cover topics like the role of wildland fire, an explanation of permafrost, and an overview of some of the changes caused by people.

Last week, the refuge reopened the Boreal Forest Trail, which suffered damage during last year’s flooding. “We had so much rain last summer, and parts of our refuge are parts of old riverbed channels, so we have boardwalks that washed out,” explained Huff.

The trails only cover a small portion of the refuge but include an array of habitats from the boreal forest to wetlands and farm roads. Winter snow and ice make much more of the refuge accessible through 40 miles of multi-use trails created by the skijoring and mushing communities. Use of the trails is free.

Nature walks and other activities are free and take place all year, and virtually all activities focus on families and a full range of age groups.

Daily nature hikes will continue through the summer at 10 a.m. Mondays through Saturdays, and 7 p.m. Wednesdays, and then reduce to twice a week in September. Major events include the upcoming Tanana Valley Sandhill Crane Festival August 28 – 30.

​Come summertime, Alaskans follow the salmon. They gear up and lean into their dip nets, haul out and toss in a line. When not looking to catch fish, they gather to celebrate summer’s nutritional bounty and bountiful light. During the Alaska Salmon Runs and Salmon Jam Music Festival in Cordova July 17 and 18, that means running, racing and kicking up heels, whether in sandals, sneakers, mud boots or bare feet.

The Salmon Runs include a king salmon marathon and sockeye half-marathon, along with shorter, faster courses that children can do, like the Humpy 5K and One Mile Smolt Run/Walk.

“What I love about this event is that it is indeed a day when kids and families come out and run together,” said Kristin Carpenter, race coordinator for Alaska Salmon Runs. “Often one parent will be running the marathon or half-marathon and the other parent will run the 5K with the kids.”

If the crowds come in like previous years, she expects about 40 kids to join the one-mile race this year and another 30 to 60 to run the 5K.

The races take place Saturday morning, but the festival starts Friday afternoon with a guided wild plant walk at 5 p.m., followed by art activities, music and the Copper River salmon cook-off at 6 p.m.The featured bands include Aloha Bluegrass, the Railsplitters, the Builders and the Butchers, plus a slew of opening acts.

The weekend is definitely kid friendly, said Cathy Long, the producer of the Salmon Jam and Copper River Wild Salmon Festival.Kid activities include face painting, fish printing, casting practice and more, plus family dancing, running and playing outside.

Your kids come in from playing outside. They’re hot, sweaty and thirsty. What do you give them to quench their thirst? Fruit-flavored drinks? Sport drinks?

How about water?

Water and a healthy snack is all your children need to recover from physical activity. Sports drinks, juice drinks and sweetened flavored water are loaded with sugar that your kids don’t need.

Many parents mistakenly believe that some drinks with high amounts of added sugar — especially fruit drinks, sports drinks and sweetened flavored water — are healthy options for children, according to a recent study from the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at the University of Connecticut. The center’s study is featured in an article by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

It’s no surprise some parents are confused by these sugary drinks. This confusion is related to the way these drinks are marketed, using labels that say the drinks are all natural, they contain vitamins, replenish electrolytes, and are necessary for hydration – even when they are high in unhealthy amounts of sugar. Sports drinks, on average, contain about 9 teaspoons of sugar per 20 ounce bottle.

“Although most parents know that soda is not good for children, many still believe that other sugary drinks are healthy options. The labeling and marketing for these products imply that they are nutritious, and these misperceptions may explain why so many parents buy them,” said Jennifer Harris, PhD, a study author and the Director of Marketing Initiatives at the Rudd Center. Harris was quoted in the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation article.

The misunderstanding of the large amount of sugar in sports drinks, juice drinks and sweetened flavored water inspired the Play Every Day campaign to create a new TV Public Service Announcement that shows how to find added sugars on the ingredient list. If sugar or another sweetener is listed in the first three ingredients, the drink is loaded with sugar. Play Every Day is producing a new PSA and related posters that focus on the high amount of sugar in sports drinks to post in schools. The main message is “Just because kids play sports, doesn’t mean they need sports drinks.” Water is the best option for rehydrating when you get out and play.

The recent Rudd Center survey found that 96 percent of participating parents gave sugary drinks to their child during the previous month. Play Every Day surveyed hundreds of Alaska parents of young children during 2014 and learned that 65 percent of Alaska parents served their child sugary drinks during the past week. In both surveys, fruit drinks and sodas were the sugary drinks most often served. Other common sugary drinks provided by parents included sports drinks, sweetened iced tea and sweetened, flavored water.

For more information on selecting healthy drinks for your children, look at Play Every Day’s FAQ page. Click on this website to learn more about finding added sugar on an ingredient list.

​When Anchorage residents nominate a park for an upgrade, they point to Campbell Creek and Balto Seppalaas having the kind of playgrounds they want for their children.Most don’t know these parks as “inclusive” because of features like ramps and soft landing surfaces that make them more accessible to everyone.

Inclusive playgrounds include equipment that is accessible to children of all abilities, either because the equipment is at ground level or it can be reached using ramps. Families like the soft landing surfaces that prevent injuries, sometimes feeling like foam and other times synthetic turf that is fire resistant and comfortable. Kids like to walk on the turf with bare feet, Durand said.

The Municipality of Anchorage has always followed the standards of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) when building parks and playgrounds. During the past five years, however, the parks department has put more effort into going above and beyond the ADA standards and building inclusive parks that make equipment accessible to all children as well as to parents who have physical disabilities and want to play with their children, said Durand. One father who uses a wheelchair thanked the parks department for building playgrounds in a way that allows him to help his children on the equipment, Durand said.

Inclusive parks often include more seating areas, places for picnics, and transitions to trails, creeks and other places to explore nearby. They offer more than equipment that promotes physical activity; they build in sensory instruments like the drums at Cuddy Family Midtown Park, too.

“People like to make music,” Durand said. “People like interesting textures and things to touch. It just kind of opens it up for everyone.”

Cuddy Family Midtown Park was the first park in Anchorage to be built from scratch as an inclusive playground. The Anchorage Parks and Recreation Department and the Anchorage Park Foundation have since remodeled two existing parks in Anchorage to make them inclusive — Campbell Creek and Balto Seppala — and plan to remodel three more playgrounds: David Green Park on 36th Avenue, Dave Rose Park in the Russian Jack neighborhood, and the Suzan Nightingale McKay Park in the Government Hill area. Once those parks are completed, six of Anchorage’s 85 playgrounds will be inclusive to all children.

The Anchorage Parks and Recreation Department began building inclusive parks after families approached them about wanting to be able to use more of Anchorage’s playgrounds. Funding for the parks comes from federal, state and municipal governments; private sources; and nonprofit organizations like the Anchorage Park Foundation, Durand said.

“We are working on a strategic plan to figure out how we can kind of keep this momentum going,” Durand said.

The photograph of Balto Seppala park was provided by the Anchorage Parks and Recreation Department.

Of course, you don’t have to do anything fancy. There are plenty of no-cost activities to do together — go for a walk (or make it a hike), bike, throw a ball or Frisbee, play a little flag football on the lawn…whatever you do, just get your kids out 60 minutes every day.

To supplement your activities or give your family a goal, try some of Alaska’s organized activities as well.

Next week, the Alaska Center for Children and Adults will hold their annual Family Field Day at Denali Elementary in Fairbanks. The good times roll from 4 to 7 p.m. on Wednesday, June 10. Events include an obstacle course, tug-of-war, water balloon toss, disability awareness activities and more. Get the details here.

Not in Fairbanks next week? Here are some other kid-friendly events planned around the state:

Anchorage

·KidzRunning is an 8-week program in Anchorage that starts in June and costs $100. Contact James Dooley at Skinny Raven for more information.

​Anchorage’s Mayor’s Midnight Sun Marathon embraces a new event this year -- the Healthy Futures Kid’s Mile. While grown-ups and teens look on, pick up race bibs and check out the fitness expo, kids from grades K to 6 can run the mile or half mile fun run on Thursday, June 18, at the Alaska Airlines Center. Registration is free and must be completed by 6:30 p.m.The race starts at 7 p.m.

“These multi-day events that extend beyond an adult-centric race are a great model for positively impacting a community,” said Harlow Robinson, executive director of Healthy Futures, key partner of the Kid’s Mile. “Often times, people don't self-identify as ‘athletic’ enough to run a race or they don't feel the event is fit for the whole family.The Healthy Futures Kid's Mile and the expo are going to appeal to a larger audience and reinforce the message that being physically active is important to everyone.”

The 42nd annual Mayor’s Marathon event includes full- and half-marathons, relays, a four-miler, and several youth cup races on Saturday, June 20. The marathon course is certified by USA Track and Field and finishers can use their results to qualify for the Boston Marathon. Last year, the event drew nearly 4,200 registrants from all 50 states and 13 countries.

The University of Alaska Anchorage athletic department, the organizer of the Mayor’s Marathon event since 2000, approached Healthy Futures about doing a kid-centric event this year. Like all runners at the Mayor’s Marathon event, Kid’s Mile participants will get official race bibs, plus metals and other goodies at the finish line.

Photo courtesy of the University of Alaska Anchorage athletic department.

​Every kid suffers bumps and bruises growing up; it’s just part of being a kid. As parents, we try our best to protect our children from unintentional injuries as they get out and play. Still, hundreds of Alaska children end up hospitalized with injuries every year.

What are the leading causes of injuries that require a visit to the hospital?

No. 1 is falls. Falling is the main reason children up to age 14 are hospitalized with injuries, according to information gleaned by the Department of Health and Social Services’ Injury Prevention Program from the Alaska Trauma Registry. The registry includes trauma-related information collected when people leave the hospital.

For children ages 5 to 9 years old, another leading cause is an injury from falling on a playground.

“Over the past 10 years, there has been a real push to improve playground safety,” said Dr. Jo Fisher, the injury prevention program manager. “Playground designers are looking at improved construction, safer materials and increased padding,” she said. “But it’s important that parents be there when their children are on the playground — plus, it’s a great opportunity for the parents to be active as well.”

Next on the list for children ages 5 to 9 is injuries from bike riding.

“Most bicycle injury reports include the phrase ‘lost control and fell’,” Dr. Fisher said. She stressed that parents need to be sure that their children are wearing approved bicycle helmets and that they need to be aware that helmet-wearing is required by law for children under age 16 in Anchorage and Kenai, and for children under age 18 in Bethel, Juneau and Sitka. Parents should also make sure that the bike their child rides is the right size and is in good mechanical condition. Check with your local fire department to learn about bike safety classes, bike rodeos and the availability of helmets in your area.

For older children from 10 to 14, riding All-Terrain-Vehicles is a leading cause of injuries. Three to four children often ride an ATV at the same time, driving it to school in our rural communities, Dr. Fisher said. More children are inclined to wear a helmet when riding a bicycle than when riding an ATV, she said. The faster something goes, the more severe the injuries can be. Helmets are critical when it comes to riding on ATVs, she said.

Don’t forget about life jackets (a.k.a. personal flotation devices or PFDs) when recreating on or near the water. The state’s Kids Don’t Float program provides free loaner life jackets at many locations around the state.

Let’s all do our part to keep our kids safe and healthy while they get out and play, 60 minutes a day.

What does it look like in spring when dozens of Alaska kids decide to get out and play?

It looks like biking, hiking and running in the woods. Native dancing and doing the high-kick.

It looks like jumping in puddles during the same week another child sit-skis down the mountain. And it looks like tumbling, sliding at the playground, and kicking around the soccer ball.

Last month we filmed Alaska kids doing all different types of physical activity to show that the possibilities for play are endless. The new 30-second TV public service announcement is packed with a fun and simple message: No matter what you like to do, just get out and play – 60 minutes – every day.

“All children, regardless of their ability or disability, benefit from physical activity,” said Amanda Cooper, the Health and Disability Program Manager with the Section of Women’s, Children’s and Family Health. “The Play Every Day campaign is the perfect avenue to encourage children of all abilities to get out and play.”

The Alaska days just keep getting longer and longer, making it easier to find a sunny stretch of 60 minutes. So there’s only one question: How will you choose to use that 60 minutes to get out and play?

​Bike to School Day melds safety with everything kids love about cycling — the independence, the exhilaration, and the fresh air. This year’s National Bike to School Day on May 6 will involve over 50 Alaska schools and thousands of students.

Last year, Anchorage registered more schools than any other participating community nationwide. Schools can still register now, though it’s not required for participation.

“The event promotes life-long fitness and healthy habits,” noted Kim Resheske, a P.E. teacher at Kincaid Elementary and a Bike to School Coordinator for the Anchorage School District. “It also teaches students that it is important to ride safely.”

Bike to School rules are simple. Students must wear a helmet and they should wear bright clothing and follow the guidelines of the Safe Routes to School Program:

Wear a helmet.

Be visible.

Ride in the same direction as traffic.

Signal intentions.

Be alert to changing traffic conditions.

Obey all traffic signs and signals.

Ocean View Elementary students will get an extra bonus this year when Olympic cross country skiers and siblings Sadie Bjornsen and Erik Bjornsen, along with Paralympic athlete Andrew Kurka, join them for the ride.

But whoever you ride with and wherever you live, Bike to School Day champions pedal power as a way to get out and play, every day.

​The American Heart Association’sAlaska Heart Runwill travel along a new course this year, but its mission remains the same: To help prevent heart disease and stroke while encouraging families and friends to stick together. This year’s event on Saturday, April 25, will start and finish at the UAA Alaska Airlines Center parking lot in Anchorage. The timed race starts at 9:30 a.m., and the untimed run and walk gets underway at 10 a.m.

Whether you race, walk, skip or jog, the 5K course provides an opportunity to support health, have some fun and maybe achieve a personal best race time for the 3-plus miles.

Online registration for the timed 5K run ended April 17, but you can still register for the untimed eventonlinethrough April 23 and at bib pick-up days or the day of the race. Register or pick up bibs at the King Career Center, 2650 E. Northern Lights Blvd., from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday and Friday, April 22 and 24. Registration fees for the timed event (including late fees applied after April 18) are $35 for adults and $20 for children ages 4 to 18. Fees for the untimed event are $30 for adults and $15 for kids. Kids under age 4 run for free. All children ages 6 and under receive a commemorative medal for completing the run.

Money raised at the Heart Run will benefit the American Heart Associationand will fund research and community programs that help prevent heart disease and stroke in both adults and children.

To that end, staff from the Alaska Children’s Heart Center will be at the Heart Run again this year teaching CPR. Every spring, the center sponsors and supports the Heart Run, said Dr. Kitty Wellmann, a specialist with the center. They host a booth and teach CPR to anyone who wants to learn, she said.